Not Going Away
by redsandman99
Summary: A friendship begins to evolve into something much more.
1. Chapter 1

**12/04/09**

"Fuck," I said under my breaths as I changed back into my street clothes. I was not in the most pleasant of moods right now. My triple threat match with Beth and Mickie had not gone the way I had wanted it to at all. I had gone in it to win it and I had lost. I got my face smashed into the mat courtesy of the Glam Slam and then I had gotten pinned by Mickie. So yeah, my mood was just in the shitter.

"You got screwed," Tyson said, trying to be comforting but annoying me because he kept rubbing my back and shit. Our on again, off again relationship was off again, although he didn't want it to be. He had wanted to stay together but I had felt like it was time to move on. He had stopped making me happy and I spent more time wanting to be away from him than actually wanting to be around him.

Dave shook his head as I only grunted. He knew better than to try and say anything to make me feel better. When I was in this kind of mood, it was better to just let me calm down on my own.

Tyson sighed and realized that his efforts were futile so he just decided to stop trying. They just both shut up and let me finished get dressed before simply getting up and leaving the room. I didn't even bother to grab my stuff. David and Tyson would grab them for me when they were ready to go to the hotel. Right now, I couldn't stay in the arena and I wasn't ready to go back to the hotel yet anyway. I just needed to go outside and clear my head.

I blew past everyone in my path, ignoring them all even as they all stared at me. Michelle and Layla were both standing right in the middle of the hallway talking about whatever nonsense it was they liked to discuss between themselves and I plowed right through both of them, nearly knocking them on their skinny asses. That earned me some nasty childish insult but I ignored that too and didn't stop until I was outside and I could take a giant breath of fresh air. It was really chilly and I didn't have a coat or anything but I just folded my arms across my chest and decided to just deal with it.

"How's your face?"

I spun around and saw that Beth was out there, sitting on the hood of her car and staring at me. "It's fine," I replied, annoyed that my attempt to be alone had just failed.

She cocked an eyebrow at me. "You sound upset."

"Yeah well tonight has not been one of my better nights."

She shook her head. "If anyone here has a reason to be upset it's me. I had that match won and that stupid little bitch Mickie-"

"What is the deal between you guys anyway?" I couldn't help but ask that. Beth had come to the WWE all high on getting revenge on Mickie but I had never heard what it was about. All I knew was the cryptic shit they said on TV and then Beth got her jaw broken by Victoria and I never heard another word about the whole issue. I had asked a couple people who had been there in the beginning of it about it but they hadn't known what the story was either.

"We don't like each other," Beth replied, keeping that nice and cryptic. "That's all you and anyone else needs to know." Just the way she said it told me that there was much much more to the story than what she was willing to share. "She and LayCool can tear each other apart for all I care."

I nodded along to that. I didn't have a personal problem with Mickie; to me she was only competition and competition was something I thrived on. LayCool however, was another story. I couldn't stand either one of them, although I personally hated Michelle more than Layla. She did nothing to deny the rumors of her and Mark fucking around because it got her opportunities that she wouldn't have gotten otherwise and if that wasn't enough to piss me off, the fact that I was deep in on Team Lawson was.

"So…this fresh air helping you at all?"

I shrugged. "It's not hurting. It's not the miracle cure I was hoping it would be but it's not hurting."

"Oh yeah?" Beth hopped off her car and pulled her keys out of her pocket. "Well I'm freezing. You want to go and get drinks? Consolation prize for losing to the psycho bitch?"

"I think she's just going by Piggie now."

She snorted loudly. "If she's the pig then you and me would probably be considered whales."

"Nah. We'd be guys."

"We would."

"Yeah." I really did believe that. If LayCool wanted to start saying shit about us, they'd pull the guy card. It was annoying to think about really but whatever. Them saying that wouldn't change the fact that both Beth and I could kick the crap out of them if we so well pleased. Anorexic annoying Barbie dolls didn't have shit on us.

"Wonderful." She jerked her head back towards her car. "You didn't answer my question you know."

"What was the question again?"

"You, me, drinks…wanna go?"

"…Okay." I wasn't one for really going out and drinking all that much. I was always the responsible one that was driving David's or Tyson's or Cooper's drunk asses home but what the hell? A few drinks couldn't hurt.

…

"You know, I wish I could have been a diva years ago," Beth told me as we downed another round of whiskey. We were in a good old fashioned bar where fist fights were a plenty and the entire place reeked of cigarette smoke. As much as I hated that smell, I was glad we were here instead of some club. I would take cigarette smoke and guys needing a punch to the face over stupid music and drunk guys trying to grind up on me while I made futile attempts to resist the urge to punch them in the face.

"I mean, back in the day, it was fantastic" she went on, grabbing the bottle of Old Crow and pouring us another shot. "They had the talent AND the company treated it seriously. But then Trish left and then Lita left and it all started falling apart on us. We've got talented girls sure but talent is no longer really respected. I mean let's take that battle royal at Wrestlemania as example! So much could have been done with that but no, it was a vehicle for a stupid Santino schtick."

I nodded along to that. Diva Wrestlemania moments had been going down hill in recent years. Miss Wrestlemania was just meant for "Santina" and was never meant to be taken seriously. The Bunnymania match was just a way to get Santino, Snoop Dogg and Playboy all involved and Ashley vs. Melina was just ugly considering the fact that Ashley couldn't wrestle for shit. "The bookers just don't care," I said. "Which sucks. You, me, Mickie, Melina, Gail and Jillian are the most talented girls there but do they care?"

"They don't. Vince likes McCool, Maryse and Kelly. Shows you what he's thinking with."

I snorted and downed yet another shot. I had a pretty good tolerance but usually I didn't drink this much this fast so I was really starting to get a good buzz. "So what the hell do we do then?"

"Be thankful we're not on Raw. At least on Smackdown we usually get more than two minute matches and stupid segments with the guest hosts."

"Oh Lord…" I hiccupped and just grabbed the bottle of whiskey and drank straight from it. That was not a pleasant thought. I wasn't given nearly as many matches as I wanted since WWE was more content with using me as David and Tyson's valet but I would take that over being the guest host arm candy. "Don't even say that. I don't want to be jinxed."

"Nah, I think you're safe for the most part," Beth assured me.

"Oh yeah? Why is that? Am I not pretty enough to be arm candy?"

"Nah, it's not that. You're plenty pretty to be eye candy. But I don't even Vince is stupid enough to regulate you to that."

"Hmmm…maybe you're right. Maybe I'll just become a jobber instead." That wouldn't be surprising to me at all. Victoria and Jillian had been put to that and they were way more talented than over half the girls they had been forced to lose to. Victoria at least got to have some career highs although that made what she eventually became all the more sad. Then again, Jillian never really got a truly fair chance at becoming all she could be and that was pretty sad within itself.

"God I hope not," Beth muttered. "You're too good for that." She downed another shot before waving her hands around. "You know what would be cool?"

"What?"

"Me versus you at Wrestlemania."

I thought about that, nodding along to it as it processed through my drunk brain. "I'd beat you," I declared.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I'd make you tap."

"You sound so sure about that."

"I am sure about that."

"Well I'm sure I'd get you with the Glam Slam just like I did tonight only there wouldn't be a Mickie to take away my pinfall."

I sneered and got up to my feet. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah baby."

"That's my line." I took one last drink before pointing to the door. "And we can take this to the parking lot. We don't gotta wait for Wrestlemania."

She grinned and got up to her feet as well. "Okay. You wanna go, we'll go." She nearly knocked the chair over as she shoved it out of the way and the two of us stumbled out of the bar and went out to a secluded spot in the parking lot. "Pinfall, submission, knockout…" Her words were slurring together a bit as she named off those rules. "No hair pulling."

"We don't got a ref," I pointed out. "How we gonna pin with no ref?"

She just shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Now ding ding bitch."

I smirked and locked up with her, the two of us trying to shove the other one away to show off our power. The test of strength went to a standstill though and I quickly switched it up to putting her in a headlock. She tried to wiggle out of it but I tightened my grip, causing her to hit me in the stomach to break loose. As I doubled over in pain, she grabbed on to my wrist and began twisting my arm. I quickly stomped on her toe and then begin twisting on her arm, which just made her mad.

"Come here!" she shouted, managing to pick me up and start trying to crush me with a bear hug.

"Fuck!" I tried to get out of it but she wasn't letting go for anything. Going purely on instinct, I wrapped my legs around her waist and countered the bear hug and turned it into a dragon sleeper. I leaned all my weight back and brought her down to her knees, trying my best to keep my shoulders off the ground so she couldn't try to say that she was pinning me.

"Bitch!" She started flailing around desperately, somehow getting out of my sleeper and then trying to hold my shoulders down for three. I tightened the grip that my legs had on her and we started rolling around, doing our very best to get the pin on one another.

I wasn't sure at what point exactly things turned from more than just an innocent wrestling match. Maybe it was when I kept my legs around her waist and wouldn't let go no matter how much we rolled around. Maybe it was when she was practically right on top of me, trying to pin my shoulders down with her hands. Or maybe it was after awhile of me bucking my hips up in order to get myself back on top every time she got on top of me. Whatever the case was, eventually I found myself being pinned down by her with my wrists up above my head and my legs still around her waist. We both were breathing heavily and neither of us were moving another inch. We just stared at each other for the longest time, the tension building up more and more with every passing second.

"I think I've won," she finally said.

"Uh huh." I wasn't inclined to disagree with her. I just stared at her with half lidded eyes, my legs still locked around her waist.

"Nattie?"

"Yeah?"

"You think we should get up now?"

I just shrugged. The ground was colder than hell but I personally felt all warm and fuzzy in my current position.

For a couple of minutes we just stared at each other, neither of us really making a move. Finally I just surprised the both of just by moving my head up and kissing her. Her eyes widened in shock but she didn't try to make me stop. Instead she let me kiss her and then very hesitantly she began kissing me back, parting her lips to allow me to glide my tongue into her mouth.

"Whoa! If that's how girls go drinking we gotta start coming along more often!"

Beth and I both stopped and turned our heads to give Tyson a death glare while David smacked him upside the head.

"What?" he said innocently. "What did I say?"


	2. Chapter 2

**3/28/10**

My family has always been a rather dysfunctional one. For whatever reason, there are always members ready to rip each other's heads off. But tonight isn't about any of that. For once we are all united and we are all feeling good. We as a family had just beaten the hell out of Vince and Bret got to let out all the resentment and all the anger he had ever felt towards him. Sure there could possibly be some backlash for me, David and Tyson considering that we helped beat up our own boss but that wasn't really what was on our minds at the moment. We would deal with any consequences later. First the celebration had to come.

"Drinks!" Smith shouted. We were at the Wrestlemania after party and in true Hart fashion, the majority of our family was looking to get shit faced. Only difference was, we were being joined by three people that were not supposed to be there at all.

"Yes!" James agreed, already buzzed because he had been drinking all through the show to begin with. Because he and anyone else with the last name of Lawson were banned from any and all WWE events, they hadn't been able to get into the show. They weren't even supposed to be at this party but with all the wrestlers, referees, ring crew and everyone's families all here and all the alcohol that was going to be flowing, they were going to be lost in the shuffle and wouldn't even be noticed really. "Drinks! We need drinks!"

"I want drinks!" Connor said excitedly.

"No!" we all shouted at once. There was absolutely no way he was going to be allowed to drink. Him and alcohol would just lead to disaster.

Connor glared at us. "Mean!" he shouted. "Mean mean me-OOOOHHH! Sparkles!" He bounced off over to Eve and Gail, whose dresses were nice and sparkly. The kid loved sparkles.

"Whose going to be on Connor duty?" Diana asked out of pure curiosity. We couldn't all get shit faced and leave him unattended. The last time we had done that he had run off and got caught breaking into an aquarium so he could go swimming with the penguins.

"I'll text Julie and tell her to stop flirting with all the boys so she can do it," James said. "She's a good babysitter."

"Poor Julie," I said as I accepted a drink from David. "She always gets Connor duty."

"Yeah, well that's the price she pays for being an assistant." Cooper's arm went around my shoulders and gave me a good squeeze. "You gonna outdrink me tonight bitch?"

"What do you think skank? I'll drink you under the table and then lock in the Sharpshooter-"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah baby." I pushed him playfully to prove my point. We had met fifteen years ago when Mark had taken James, Cooper and Connor all out on the road with him in order to appease James since their relationship was all rocky (it didn't really work but it was one of the few attempts Mark actually made) and I was traveling with my dad and uncles for once because I had begged and begged and finally my parents gave in. Mark and Bret were drinking buddies out on the road so naturally Bret met James, who introduced him to Davey, Owen and my dad. They all hit it off and I ended up meeting Cooper and Connor out of it. Cooper was my gigantic school girl crush, but sadly, even at the age of thirteen, Cooper knew he was completely and totally gay. After several failed attempts at getting his attention I settled for having him being my gay best friend and we haven't looked back since.

He snorted loudly and tried to put me in a headlock but I stopped him with a swift elbow to the gut. "OW!" he said as obnoxiously as he could. "Bitch. I'm telling Jeff."

"Oh yeah, I'm so scared of him," I said with a roll of my eyes. "Where is he anyway?"

"Couldn't be here. Stupid TNA made him work."

"Those bastards. How dare they?"

"I know, right?" He moved his shaggy dark hair back out of his face and sighed. "It's no fair. Drunk sex with Jeff is always the best."

"Thank you for that TMI." I linked my arm with his and began to drag him away from our families. "Come on. I want to mingle with all the people."

"What? No! I HATE mingling! I HATE people!" He tried to drag his feet so he wouldn't have to go but I just tightened my grip on him and continued pulling him against his will.

"Don't make me carry you," I snapped. "I will do it."

"Oh yeah?" He quickly snaked his arm around my waist and picked me up but that backfired on him when I kicked his shin with my high heel. "OW! Whore!"

"Can it slut." Once I was back on my feet I started dragging him around by the ear just because I knew he hated it. "Who you want to go talk to first?"

"Maybe we should go talk to Beth. I could get you two hammered and then let you make out so you'll leave me alone."

I stopped and gave him an annoyed look. I should have known better than to tell him about that one incident outside the bar. "You're going down this road again?"

"Yes." He rolled his eyes at the look on my face. "Oh come on. You two haven't even talked about what happened. How do you stay on the same brand and not address an issue like that?"

"Because there's nothing to talk about," I insisted. " There's no issue. We were drunk and in our drunken state of mind we kissed. That's it."

"Bull-fuckin-shit. You liked that kiss and you wanna do it again. You can't fool me, I know your darkest secrets."

I glared at him once more but it wasn't really doing a whole lot of good, especially since we both knew he was right. I had thought about that kiss a lot since that night. I couldn't help myself. I tried not to because it had just been something we had done while both drunk and people did stuff like that a lot when they were wasted; I know I had my fair share of drunken kisses with both girls and guys back when I was more wild and none of them had meant anything. But for whatever reason I just could not get the kiss we shared off my mind. I had tried but nothing had actually worked. Hell I even went back to Tyson for a few weeks to try to get her off my mind but that had just been a fail of epic proportions.

"Drunk or not, you should maybe try saying something about it." Cooper was not about to let this go and it was quite irritating. "If you're still thinking about it after three months then obviously a spark was felt. And if you don't-Connor stop that! Get off of her!"

"Why?" Connor asked as Tiffany continued trying to give him a piggyback ride while Julie attempted to get him down. "We're playing!"

"You're going to hurt her you dope!"

I shook my head. I wasn't as worried about Tiffany's well being as he was. Connor and her were tight for whatever reason and from what I had seen, she was quite equipped to handle him. "You want to go torment Phil or something?"

"I think Dad's taking care of that." Cooper turned me around and pointed to James, who had Phil in a full nelson and was refusing to let go no matter how much Phil struggled and screamed. "Besides, I think you've got company."

"Wait, what?" I was turned back around the other way and came face to face with the approaching Beth. My breath caught a bit at the sight of her and Cooper chuckled before bailing, leaving me all alone with her.

"Hey," she said, saving me the trouble of having to speak first.

"Hey." That one word greeting felt awkward and I didn't understand why. This was Beth. I had known her for awhile and I had never felt this way around her before. I felt like I was a thirteen year old girl with a crush again. _But I'm not crushing on her,_ I told myself. _I'm not. I just am for whatever reason fixating on her lips and want to taste the gloss she has on them via kissing…wait, what the fuck am I thinking? Bad Nattie, bad!_

"It's um…been awhile." She seemed to be feeling a bit awkward too, although I couldn't tell whether it was my vibes she was picking up on or if she felt awkward for her own reasons.

"It has." Did I bring up the kiss or not? Was that the right thing to do? Most times when I had kissed girls while drunk we were able to joke about it the next time we saw each other but not this time. No, I was too busy remembering the kiss and truly realizing just how much I had liked it.

"You look nice."

"Thanks. You look good too." Good? That was understating it. She looked amazing. Like really really amazing.

"So how did it feel to slap Vince?"

"It felt pretty good, I won't lie."

She laughed a bit and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. "I bet. He's had that kind of a beating coming to him for awhile now."

"Yeah."

Cue again to the awkward silence. God how I hated it. I never went through stuff like this. I ALWAYS knew what to say.

"Hey um, can I ask you something? And yes I'm aware that I already did."

I nodded. "Go ahead."

"Have you been avoiding me?"

"What? No." A bit of a lie…it wasn't like I had been _purposefully_ avoiding her. I just had maybe subconsciously avoiding her because I had been afraid of this kind of awkwardness between us. "No no. I've just been busy and stuff. Tyson and David take so much looking after." I laughed, hoping she never told them I said that because then they would make annoying attempts to strangle me for talking about them like they were annoying little pests.

"Oh. So we're good?"

"Yeah. We're good."

"Good."

Cue to the awkward silence once more. There was a lot more that I wanted to say and I thought that maybe she wanted to say more too but she seemed like she was at a loss for words as well.

"I should um…my family-"

"Right," she said, nodding along quickly. "That's fine. I'm supposed to be on Santino duty anyway. Date him just for awhile and suddenly people expect you to keep an eye on him so he doesn't try to have any drunken misadventures. That man is going to be lucky if I don't kill him at some point during all this."

"Well if you want to, I'll help you get rid of the body," I offered helpfully.

"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." She walked off to go start her Santino duty and once she was somewhat away Cooper trotted right back over to me.

"Well?" he said expectantly.

"That was awkward," I complained. "Really really awkward and I didn't want it to be but it was. That was not cool."

He shook his head and sighed. "Well to be fair, the last time you guys were alone together, you not only kissed her but you kind of humped her-"

"I did NOT hump her!" I got a few strange looks for that one but I glared at everyone who dared to look and they went right back to minding their own fucking business.

"You had your legs wrapped around her and you were bucking your hips-"

"Because I was trying to get on top!" I stopped when I realized how that sounded. "That didn't help my case at all, did it?"

"Nope," he confirmed with a snort. "It didn't."

"Well fuck." I couldn't talk about this with him. He was being too annoying. No, now was the time to go find Phil and help make his life miserable. It was amazing how beating the crap out of him always made my day that much better.


	3. Chapter 3

"This calls for a toast!"

My ears perked up at Gail's words. She and I along with Beth, Tiffany, Kelly, the Bellas, Eve and Serena, were all in her hotel room, having been gathered up to celebrate Beth beating Michelle for the title in the Extreme Makeover match. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that Michelle and Layla were the most hated women in the divas locker room. In a lot of ways they were just like the way they were on television but in a lot of other ways, they were actually even worse and it was great to see them get knocked down a peg or two whenever it could be done.

"Fuck yes it does!" Tiffany said enthusiastically. She had already had a few drinks in her and one of us should have probably snatched her glass out of her hand before she got stupid but none of us did. We were too busy raising our own glasses for the toast.

Gail waited until all the glasses were up before speaking. "Beth, you are _amazing_," she said with a huge smile on her face. "Here's to you shutting bitches up via major ass kickings and may you continue to do so for a very long time."

"I think I can manage that," Beth said, downing her drink in one big gulp. The rest of us followed suit and Kelly let out a whoop and clapped her hands together.

"Why don't we GO somewhere?" she asked. "I wanna dance. Dancing is a part of celebrating."

"But watching you make an ass out of yourself is not Beth's idea of a good time," Nikki reminded her. "So sit back and relax Kell. We'll go out and dance some other time."

I shook my head at the disappointed look on her face before glancing over at Beth from the corner of my eye. She didn't look very comfortable being here, which wasn't really surprising to me at all. This whole slumber party thing just didn't fit her at all. I was surprised this was actually happening. At first maybe I thought she just agreed to it because she got caught up in the excitement of her win but given the way Gail was acting, I had become convinced that she had talked Beth into it. It was a little known fact, but Gail was very VERY persuasive. It was amazing the things she could make people do. Among her list of accomplishments, she had once convinced Rey and Evan to streak through a crowded shopping mall while wearing Richard Nixon masks, getting Shane Helms to give an unsuspecting Maryse a lap dance and somehow making me chug an entire gallon of Gatorade while holding my breath. Sure that had ended in me puking my brains out and also completely unable to ever drink Gatorade of any kind ever again but she had gotten me to do it. That sure as hell counted for something.

"So how much do you want to bet Michelle will be trying to cash in her rematch clause right away?" Eve asked as she poured herself another drink.

"I don't know if she'll be able to," Beth said with a shrug. "Kelly is debuting on the next Smackdown taping and I already heard Vickie and Vince going at it before we left the arena. Vickie wants Michelle to get another chance right away but Vince wants a tag match with me and Kelly versus LayCool."

"Really?" Kelly said, perking up and looking at Beth eagerly. "That's the plan?"

"I guess," Beth said with a shrug. "Unless Vickie somehow gets things to change so she and LayCool can try to screw me out of my title."

I shook my head. "She won't be able to. It's Kelly's debut on the blue brand. There's not going to be any change." I kept my voice as matter of fact as possible but in my head the words weren't so neutral. Kelly was a sweet girl despite being a total ditz and an annoying drunk but she didn't have the talent to be Beth's second. She would have been better off playing the role of valet; she would be okay at the whole damsel in distress that a two guys could feud over. But no, Vince threw her in the ring and left the managing to the likes of me and Serena…it wasn't really fair. Yeah Kelly was better than she used to be but someone like me or Serena or Gail (who really wasn't being used to her full potential at all and it was a shame) deserved a chance to shine in the ring.

Tiffany raised her eyebrows, seemingly sensing what I was actually thinking. That made me a tad bit uncomfortable because I didn't really know her. I quickly poured myself another drink and downed it as discussions about what to do now got under way. Brie and Eve had both brought movies with them but since they were all either stuff I had already seen or ones that I had absolutely no desire to see I wasn't really all for that plan. Nikki had actually brought Monopoly with her but nobody really wanted to play because she was notorious for cheating. Kelly wanted to gossip and Serena, Beth and I exchanged one look before simultaneously making the decision for the entire group.

"Movie," I said quickly.

"Yes," Beth agreed while Serena nodded. "I like the movie idea."

"Which one though?" Eve asked.

"I've got all the Saw movies in my bag," Serena announced. "I can go back to my room and get them."

Beth perked up at that and that pretty much sealed that deal. Kelly didn't look thrilled at all because she was a wimp when it came to scary movies but everyone else overruled her so she didn't say anything about it. "I need snacks," I declared, rolling off the bed and grabbing my wallet so I could get some money out of it.

"Snacks?" Tiffany said incredulously. "You're going to watch those movies while eating _snacks_?"

"Yeah," I replied with a nod. I didn't see what the big deal was. I had a strong stomach, I could take eating while watching utter grossness on the television. "So what? It's not a movie without snacks."

"I agree." Beth got up and grabbed her own wallet. "Come on. I need snacks too." She linked arms with me and we left the room as Nikki said something about how we better not barf on her when things got too gross.

"I can NOT believe I let Gail convince me a slumber party was a good idea," Beth said as we walked down the hallway. The look on her face was so annoyed that I couldn't help but chuckle. "It's not funny," she informed me. "I haven't been to a slumber party since I was ten and I didn't like them then."

I shook my head and forced myself to stop laughing. "Look on the bright side though; you did it again this once tonight and now Gail can't give you crap about not doing another one any time soon."

She snorted a bit and shook her head. "Some bright side…" We walked for about thirty seconds in silence. "So what inspired you to come along to this thing? You didn't strike me as the slumber party type either."

"I'm not," I confirmed. "But I figured that you could use someone to help you not go insane."

Her lips twitched and she nodded gratefully. "Thanks."

We stopped in front of the vending machine and looked at all the choices inside of it. "What are you going to get?" Beth asked.

I shrugged. "I have no idea. I didn't actually think that part through." I tapped my fingers against the glass, looking at all the choices carefully and still unable to make up my mind. "Fuck this is harder than I thought it would be."

"We could just buy like one of everything," Beth suggested, trying to make that idea come out as casually as possible. "I mean it couldn't hurt could it?"

"No, of course not! As long as you're looking to look like Piggie James that is."

Beth and I both bit back groans as we turned around to face Michelle and Layla, who were walking by and laughing at what constituted as joke to them. The fact that they weren't even brave enough to stand their ground and actually say stuff like that to our face was what really got me. "Fuck this," I muttered under my breath. I handed Beth my money and went to the ice machine, pressing the little button to it to get as many ice cubes in my hand as I could hold. My hand began to go numb almost immediately but I ignored that problem in order to run up a bit to catch up with Michelle and Layla. "Hey! HEY!"

"What?" Michelle said nastily as she and Layla turned around. "What do you-" She yelped as I literally chucked the handful of ice at them, hitting both of them in the face. Was that the most mature course of action? Of course not. But hey, they were the masters of being immature so why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

"What in the HELL is your problem?" Layla asked as Michelle seethed at me.

I shrugged. "I don't know. But why don't you step up and do something about it?" I wanted an excuse to get them. Like really really get them. I'd shut them up once and for all.

They almost looked tempted to do that but then they changed their minds and retreated. I shook my head and looked back to see that Beth had come up behind me (which HAD to have helped scare Dumb and Dumber off). "Nice," she complimented me. "But it would have been hotter if you had punched them."

"Yeah well I didn't want to get in-wait, hotter?" It did take a bit for her wording to sink into my brain but once it did I felt a blush rise up in my cheeks.

She froze, also realizing the way she had just said that. "I um…I meant better. It would have been better if you had punched them."

She was lying. It was so blatantly obvious that it made both of us shift around uncomfortably. The tension that had been felt on the night we kissed was rearing its head once again and we both laughed nervously to try to break it.

"We should um…we should get the snacks," I said, knowing that Serena probably had already gotten back with the movies and everyone was just waiting on us.

"Yeah," she said. "We can't keep them waiting."

"Right." We went back to the vending machine and I once again went back to trying to decide what the hell to get myself. I couldn't really make up my mind for whatever reason and was about to just settle on a bag of Doritos when my arm was grabbed and I was turned around and pushed up against the machine. "Wha-" I couldn't even get a whole word out before Beth's lips covered mine. My eyes widened in shock but I made absolutely no move to push her away. No, once the shock wore off I kissed her back and pulled her closer, shivering lightly as her tongue slipped into my mouth. Her mouth tasted so sweet; she had on this strawberry banana lipgloss that, with combined with the way she naturally tasted was just fucking unbelievable.

When we broke apart we were both panting for breath and staring at each other with wide eyes. "Why?" I asked when I was able to regain my ability to speak.

"I wanted to," was her reply. "Did you wish I hadn't?"

I shook my head. I certainly did not wish that. "Of course not. It just gives me reason to do this." I initiated the kiss this time, pushing her back so she was up against the wall and at my mercy. She didn't try to fight me off at all; no, now it was her turn to pull me closer and let me explore her mouth with my tongue. I would have gladly kept it up all night but the need to breathe did present itself and once we broke apart for the second time, we saw that Serena was staring at us with quite the wide eye expression.

"I was um…gonna see what was taking so long," she said sheepishly. "But um…I think I'm just going to leave you two alone now."

"Sorry," I said sheepishly. "We'll be there soon." I winced and looked at Beth who looked like she was fighting off the urge to laugh. "We should uh…finally get the snacks."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Right. Of course."

I nodded and we broke away from each other so we could finally get a move on. My lips were still tingling from our kisses and I couldn't stop stealing glances at her every chance I got.

Yeah, this sleepover turned out to be a great idea after all.


	4. Chapter 4

"So according to Serena, you and Beth were making out in the hallway."

I groaned and looked at Cooper, who was happily munching on his popcorn. We were at his house watching movies, although so far there hadn't been much watching going on. First we had gotten into a debate over which orange soda was better, Crush or Sunkist (I won because I punched him in the nuts to get him to admit defeat) then we got into a wrestling match because of that punch (he managed to roll me up in a pin and grabbed my jeans so I couldn't kick out in time) and now this was becoming the topic of conversation. At this rate we were going to have to restart the movie because we hadn't been paying any attention to it at all. "She told you about that?"

"Actually I overheard her talking to Beth about it," he corrected. "She wanted to know what was going on between you guys and I have to say, I'm mildly curious myself."

"Mildly curious?"

"Yeah. The thought of any kind of girl action makes me throw up a bit in my mouth but you're my friend so I at least need some kind of details.

"Right…" I shook my head and rolled my eyes at him. "What did Beth say to Serena? Just out of curiosity."

He shrugged. "I don't know. They realized I was listening in and went to go talk somewhere more private."

"Wow. Your eavesdropping skills need to be brushed up then. You used to never get caught while doing it."

"Yeah I know. I blame Jeff missage. My hand is not a subtle substitute for his mouth or ass."

I raised my eyebrows as that statement put some rather interesting pictures in my head but I quickly shook them off as fast as I could. That was not something I really needed to be picturing in my brain at the moment.

"So what is going on between you and Beth?" Cooper now sounded a lot more serious. "I mean really, talk to me. It's what I'm here for."

I snagged some of his popcorn and ate it before speaking. "We're just…I don't know. One minute we were getting snacks and the next we were kissing."

"Well did you like it."

"Yeah. I found my face already starting to flush and I couldn't make it stop. Cooper immediately began to laugh at me and I had to punch him in the chest to get him to stop. "Shut up, it's not funny."

"You were blushing though!" he said gleefully. "You were fucking blushing! I should have taken a picture of it, it was fucking epic. " He tried to pinch my cheek and this time I slapped him right across the face. "Ow!" he howled. "What was that for?"

"You're an ass," I told him. "A big old ass."

"Am not," he denied. "I have an ass but it's not big or old. It's just right."

"Whatever. Can we just focus on my issue for awhile please?"

"Issue? What issue? There's no issue." He shoveled another handful of popcorn into his mouth. "By the way you were blushing I think it's safe to say you really like her and want to kiss her again. And I say go for it. Go kiss her and do all the other stuff you want to do to her. You only live once."

"But-"

"Don't start. She'll be all for it."

"How do you know that for sure?" I grabbed my diet Coke and took a big long drink of it.

"Because before they realized I was there I saw the look on Beth's face when Serena brought you up. She looked like she wished you were right there with her so she could throw you down on the floor and rape you for the world to see."

I promptly choked on my Coke, rushing to set it aside so I could cough and try to expel the carbonated liquid from my lungs. "Breathe Nattie!" Cooper ordered. He leaned me forward and started smacking my back. "Breathe!"

It took several minutes to be able to do so but I finally got it out and I took another long minute to regain all of my breath. "Good girl." Cooper continued to pat me on the back until I was breathing fully normal again. "Now here's what you should do" he reached over and grabbed the phone "call her. Quit fucking around and just call her already."

I took the phone from him and stared at it. "Cooper-"

"Don't. No excuses. You call her and you get yourself some of that." He gave me two thumbs up and a big idiotic grin before getting up and leaving the room so I could have some privacy. I looked at the phone for awhile before finally deciding to just go ahead and call her. Did I have anything to lose? I hoped not. The fact that she had initiated the kissing at the hotel gave me hope. Any doubts had to be stemming from my mind's attempts to psyche me out. I just had to stop letting it do that.

"Hello?" Beth said, answering her phone on the third ring.

"Hey," I said, not realizing how much I was grinning from just hearing the sound of her voice. "It's Nattie."

"Oh hey." Her voice perked up after I said that and that made me grin even more. "What's up?"

"Not much," I replied. "I was just uh, wondering if uh…well you know there's a Raw/Smackdown house show next week."

"Yeah," she confirmed. "I do know that."

"Right. And I was just thinking that maybe you and I could go get something to eat after it was over."

"Okay," she said, agreeing to that so fast and easily that it made my head spin a bit. "That sounds great."

"Really? Awesome." I now needed to have the smile surgically removed from my face. "That's great. I'll see you then."

"Okay. I can't wait."

…

The night of the date (I wasn't calling it that out loud because I didn't want to jinx it but in my head that was what I was calling it) couldn't come fast enough for me. Time literally seemed to stop on purpose and it drove me nuts. So, in return for me losing my mind and patience, I drove everyone around me nuts. Cooper, Tyson, David, Bret, my mom, my sisters-anyone that was around me promptly wanted to strangle me after about five minutes. I didn't care though. My mind was on my date with Beth and nothing else. I kept picturing about how it would go and worry over messing it up…by the time the day actually came around I really was a mess.

"How do I look?" I asked Gail as I messed around with my hair. I had put new pink streaks in my hair that morning and had just changed into what I was going to wear out to dinner. "Do I look okay? You can tell me if I don't I can change-"

"Sweetie you look great," Gail assured me. "Really." She chuckled and shook her head as I continued to compulsively check myself over. "Wow, I've never seen you this nervous before. This is really a big deal to you isn't it?"

"Yeah," I said. "It is." I snagged some of the pink shimmery lip gloss that I had bought yesterday and put it on. "Okay, I think I'm ready."

"Have fun!" Gail said as I went out the door. I got about three steps through the hallway before I ran into Tyson, who was already giving me his best puppy dog face.

"Nattie do you think you could-"

"I'm not letting you videotape me and Beth making out," I said, already knowing where this conversation was going. "My answer isn't going to change no matter how many times you ask the question."

"Oh come on!" he whined immaturely. "Just give me something. Do you know how many times I've imagined you with a-"

"Okay I'm going to stop you now," David said, quickly coming over so he could put his hand over Tyson's mouth. "Before your mouth really gets you into trouble again."

Tyson tried to object but it didn't do him a damn bit of good. David simply lifted him up and carried him away, nodding at the thankful look I gave him before continuing on my way to the parking lot. Beth was already waiting for me by the time I got out there. "I didn't keep you waiting too long did I?" I immediately asked.

She shook her head. "Nah. I only got out here about a minute ago."

"Oh good." I held up my keys. "You want me to drive or do you want to?"

"It don't matter to me."

"Okay. I'll drive." We went to my car and took off, Beth immediately checking out my I-pod, which was hooked up on the car adaptor. "Mind if I-"

"Oh go ahead," I said with a nod. "I don't mind."

"Sweet." She began scrolling through everything I had on there, looking more and more impressed by the second. "Nice taste."

"Thanks." The majority of what was on the device was rock with some R&B and old school rap in there to keep things mixed up. When I had been a kid I had just listened to what my parents listened to and liked it but when James and Cooper met me they took me under their wing and for the most part molded my musical taste into what it was today. "I saw these guys in concert not too long ago," I said when Beth decided that we were going to listen to Three Days Grace.

"Oh yeah? How were they?"

"Good. I went with Cooper, Tyson and David. What about you? What was your last concert?"

"Bon Jovi with Santino and Rosa. They got so annoying that I ditched them mid-concert and got myself backstage so I could meet the band myself. I could only imagine how bad it would have been if those two had met him."

I nodded, imagining the same thing myself at the moment. "I do not know how you put up with those two the way you did. I mean honestly, you deserve like a medal or something for it."

"I said the same thing myself," she said. "But oh well."

I took a mental note of that whole medal thing and got us to a late night diner, that was relatively empty beyond a couple other couples and a weird guy in the corner seemingly having an entire conversation with himself. Definitely not the ideal place to go but we were hungry so we were willing to settle on just about anything. "At least it's not the worst place I've ever been to," Beth said after we had ordered our food. "One time back when I was in OVW, me, Katie Lea and Serena were in this really shitty dive because there was nowhere else to eat. And as soon as we sat down, a cockroach crawled across our table. Serena screamed and ran out of there because she's like _terrified_ of the things-like I think she really has a phobia that needs to be treated-and I had to go chase her down while Katie screamed at the manager."

"Yikes." I shuddered as I pictured the whole cockroach thing. I usually had a strong constitution for stuff that freaked people out but even that gave me the willies. "I think I would have punched someone in the face over that. That's just all kinds of messed up."

"Yeah I know. I told Katie she should have decked someone but apparently the guy she yelled at was like really gross or whatever."

"Ah. Well then that's good that she didn't. I'm a believer that its good to avoid touching gross people unless its absolutely necessary."

Beth chuckled at that. "Yeah, me too." Our waitress came over with our food and we thanked her for it and waited until she walked away before going back to the conversation. "So I was glad when you called me with this idea."

"You were?"

"Oh yeah."

"Wanna tell me why…" I had to ask. My curiosity demanded that I found out.

She looked all too eager to do so. "Because I can't seem to get you out of my head. Of course I haven't really been trying that hard." She munched on a French fry and let me take that in. "I've never had an attraction to a girl before but I look at you and I just…" she shrugged "there's something here between us. I mean at least that's what I feel. I don't know about you…" She shifted around in her seat, actually appearing to get nervous which was something I hadn't ever seen from her before. "How do you feel?"

I opened my mouth to tell her that I felt the same way but then I decided that that wasn't enough. So I leaned over the table and kissed her, not giving a damn about the people who were looking at us. "Does that answer your question?" I asked after I broke the kiss.

She nodded. "Yeah…but just to be safe maybe you should answer me again. Gotta make sure it sinks in."

I laughed and happily kissed her again. That was something I could oblige all day and all night long with absolutely no problem.


	5. Chapter 5

"Come _on_!" I said as I grabbed Beth's hand and pulled her along. We had originally been driving to the gym but on the way I had spotted a carnival in a mall parking lot and that had effectively put an end to the whole gym idea. While I was serious about going to the gym and working out and staying in shape and all that fun stuff, I was even more serious about carnivals. It didn't matter where they were or even if they weren't that good; if I saw one, I had to go to it. There were no ifs, ands or buts about it. Beth was finding that out for herself right at the moment and it seemed like she didn't know what to think. "Come on quit dragging your feet!"

"I'm not dragging my feet," Beth denied as she followed me to the ticket booth. "You're just going extremely fast."

"Well yeah!" I said, my enthusiasm starling the pimply teenaged boy who was giving out all the tickets. "Why wouldn't I be?" I reached into my pocket pulled out my wallet. "We should really get wristbands instead of tickets. That way we can ride all the rides and not have to come back here for more tickets. And it can also save us more money for games."

Beth blinked and stared at me for a long moment before laughing. "Sounds like a plan to me." She reached for her money so she could buy her own wristband but I waved her attempt off. "Nattie really-"

"Pay for the games if you want to be equal about stuff," I said as I slapped the money down on the counter. The teenaged boy stared back and forth between us, his greenish grey eyes all wide with recognition. "What's the matter?" I asked, practically jumping up and down I was so impatient. "You don't want to give us the wrist bands or something?"

"Oh! Right, sorry." The boy scrambled to hand us the bands but he was also still staring at us with this wide eyed expression that it made the next thing that came out of his mouth completely predictable. "…Can I have an autograph?"

"Sure," Beth agreed. "If you got a pen and paper."

I had never seen someone scramble so fast for those two things in my life. Beth and I both had a hard time containing our laughter but we managed to do it somehow. "Can I have a picture too?" he asked as we signed the paper he got for us.

"Okay," I said, already figuring that question would be coming.

Beth shook her head a bit as the boy ran out from behind the ticket booth and hand his camera off to the lady behind us, practically ordering her to take the picture. "I don't think he's ever been this close to two hot women before," she whispered to me.

"At least not ones who bother to pay him a dime of attention," I whispered back.

"Okay, I got it!" The boy came right up in between us and put on his biggest grin as the lady took our picture. Now we thought that was going to be the end of it but this kid had yet another idea and this one was a real doozy. "Can I get a kiss?"

Beth and I exchanged looks. This kid wasn't joking. He really really wanted to get a kiss from us. "No," I said, deciding that that wasn't even something I was willing to do. There were just certain lines I didn't cross with fans and this was one of them. "But…we'll give you this instead." I gave Beth a quick kiss on the lips before taking the wrist bands and walking off.

"…I think he sprung a boner back there," Beth said as she squeezed my hand.

"Ewww," I said, shaking my head at that.

"Well now whose fault was it?" she asked, taking one of the wristbands from me so she could put it on. "Instead of kissing his cheek you kissed me. You can't just do that kind of stuff in front of horny teenaged boys. It gives them needs."

"Again I saw ewww." That was the last thing I wanted to think about. I put on my own wristband and grabbed her hand again so I could drag her over to the Octopus. "Let's ride this first."

She stared at the ride dubiously. The ride had a giant fake octopus in the middle and there were eight arms that stretched out and they moved up and down as the entire ride spun around and around. It was one of my favorite rides at any carnival or amusement park but judging from the look on her face, it did not share the same distinction with her. "Nattie I don't want to burst your bubble but I don't handle spinning all the well."

"Oh come on, you'll be fine," I insisted. "It don't really even spin that much."

"You call that not spinning too much?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah. Come on, it's not that bad." I stuck out my lower lip and pouted until she sighed and gave in.

"I know I'm going to regret this…"

"No you won't," I said quickly. I dragged her over to the line and kissed her cheek. "You'll be fine."

"So you say." She made a point of not staring at the ride as it kept going and then once it was finally time for us to get on she was anything but eager to do so. "Just so you know, if I throw up, I'm throwing up on you," she warned.

I only shrugged at that. "Tyson's thrown up on me before and I took it like a man. I'll do the same for you."

Beth started to reply but quickly shut her mouth as the ride began. For the first couple of loops around she seemed okay and I was definitely having a blast. But then with each go around after that she began sinking lower and lower into the seat and that took more and more of the fun out of it for me. I was really starting to feel guilty for insisting that she come on here with me. _Please don't puke, please don't puke…I know I said I would take it like a man but I would take not getting puked on better…_

Somehow she managed to not puke but it really was a close call. "Oh damn it," she moaned as I practically carried her over to the nearest empty bench. "I told you…ugh…I told you…."

"I know I know, I'm sorry." I got her laid down and took off my jacket so I could fold it up and put it underneath her head as a makeshift pillow. "Just stay here. I'll get you something to help your stomach."

"Okay…like I could move anyway. My entire world is spinning on me."

I winced apologetically and ran off to the nearest table selling drinks. I was going to buy her some 7-Up but they didn't have any so I got her Sprite instead. I also go myself a giant thing of Coke and a funnel cake and that was what I was munching on when I went back over to her.

"How can you eat that right now?" she asked as she forced herself to sit up so she could drink her Sprite without choking on it.

I shrugged. "I was hungry." I licked some of the powdered sugar off my fingers before munching on more of the cake itself. "I really am sorry you know. I shouldn't have made you get on that thing."

"Eh, it's alright," she told me. "I let you convince me so its just as my fault."

That didn't make me feel too much better and I decided I needed to make it up to her some more. So once her stomach was settled down and we started walking around again, I took her over to the Dunk the Clown game and paid for three balls to throw at the target. "Alright, let's hope I still have skills at this," I said under my breath. I took the first ball and threw it, missed the target by about an inch. Second ball I missed by a lot more than that because a damn air horn went off and startled me.

"Ha!" the clown said obnoxiously. "You better make this last one count toots."

My eyes narrowed angrily. I HATED being called toots. "Oh I will," I growled. I stared at the target for a long moment before throwing the ball as hard as I could, hitting it directly and sending the clown for a swim.

"Nice," Beth said, giving me a high five.

"Thanks." I grabbed a cute little teddy bear and handed it over to her. "Here you go."

"Aww thanks." She accepted the present and then got a determined look in her eyes. "You know I'm going to have to win you something now."

"You don't have-"

"Oh yes I do." She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the dunking booth and over to a little putt putt thing they had set up.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked with raised eyebrows. "They usually fuck with these things and make it so you can't get it in the hole."

She only smirked as a response and I decided to just stand back and let her do her thing. Much to my surprise, she actually made all three shots she was given and won me a stuffed tiger that was almost as big as me. "How-"

"Little known fact about me: I'm a putt putt prodigy," she informed me proudly. "I suck at real golf but I can putt putt like a mother fucker."

I laughed loudly at that. "Good to know." I hugged my new tiger close to me with one arm and used the other to be linked with Beth as we walked around. "Got any other little known facts?"

"Yeah. But maybe you should share one of yours before I share another one of mine."

That sounded fair to me. "I hate barbeque chips," I confessed.

"What? How do you hate barbeque chips?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, I just do. Now what about you?"

"I love sour cream. When I was a kid I would smother it on everything. I even put it on my macaroni and cheese once. My mother about threw up."

"I can see why," I said with a wrinkled nose. "When I was a kid I liked to eat salami, peanut butter and tomato sandwiches."

She raised her eyebrows. "I think that is like the weirdest combination of stuff ever."

"Yeah nobody understood it either."

"I went to prom with Tommy Eaton, one of the boys from the wrestling team and he tried to ditch me and I had to kick his ass."

"I went to prom with Tyson and he snuck in alcohol and got so wasted that he made an idiot of himself so I had to kick his ass because he was embarrassing me. I was so pissed because I didn't even want to go with him. I wanted to take Cooper but he absolutely refused to go. It was so unfair."

"Did you have a crush on him?"

"Yeah. I mean by my senior year I had pretty much accepted the fact that he was never going to be interested in that way but I still had a little bit of hope. That didn't get me anywhere."

Beth chuckled lightly. "A lot of girls would love to get on that. Brie and Nikki have their seduction techniques all planned out."

"They would be better off seducing a wall," I said with a shake of my head. "Believe me, I would know." I looked around at all the rides and games, trying to decide what we should do next. "What do you want to do?" I finally asked when I couldn't make up my mind.

Beth looked around, suddenly stopping and grinning when something caught her eye. "What about the giant slides?" she asked. "We can race down them."

"Sounds good to me," I agreed. "But just so you know I'm so going to win."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah baby."

"Well we'll see about that." She gave me a nice hard kiss on the lips before running off, making me shake my head and chase after her.

"Hey! HEY! That is CHEATING!"


	6. Chapter 6

Beth and I walked into the arena hand in hand, making several people's heads turn in the process. We hadn't exactly been flaunting our relationship around our co-workers; today was the first day we had ever walked in together doing this. The way we figured it, everyone was going to find out eventually. Any secret that managed to be kept for any length of time was inevitably exposed one way or another so the two of us had decided to just go ahead and do it on our terms.

"Beth and Nattie, sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

I groaned and looked over to my right, where Tyson was standing and leering at us obnoxiously. He was taking great delight in this whole thing, mainly because he was under the impression that maybe if he kept bugging us enough, we would let him watch us make-out or whatever. He had already been informed that that was never going to happen under any circumstances but he didn't like that answer so he was refusing to accept it.

Beth glared at him. "You're asking for an ass kicking again, are you aware of that?"

He shook his head and tried to look innocent, which was so not fooling either of us. "What? I'm not doing anything!"

"Right, sure. Whatever." I shooed him away with my hand. "Go keep David company. I'm sure he's looking for you." We tried to just walk away but being the oblivious idiot that he was, Tyson didn't take the hint, which was just super super annoying.

"Oh he don't need me," he said dismissively. He tried to wiggle his way in between us and put his arms around our shoulders. "He's trying to teach Yoshi how to play poker so I'm free to spend as much time with you as OW!" He gave me a hurt look because I just punched him in the stomach. "What was that for?"

"You're an idiot," I replied. "And you're not wanted right now so go away!"

"But-but-" He whined and stomped his foot childishly when we both raised our fists this time. "You two are mean!" When that statement didn't make us change our minds he stormed off completely.

"You really dated him?" Beth asked me as she shook her head and watched him go.

"Yeah," I said with a sigh. "Believe me, I'm not exactly proud to admit it."

"Well to be fair, we've all got someone like that," she pointed out in my defense. "I've dated a couple of idiots…I mean come on, I dated _Santino_."

"At least Santino was a sweet idiot. Tyson is just a moron."

"Well he's gone so let's not talk about him anymore," Beth said with a grin. "You know he'll be trying to worm his way back in between us soon enough."

I groaned at the thought and then tried to just push it out of my mind completely. We were not there to focus on Tyson. We were there so she could wrestle Rosa for the Superstars taping and then we were leaving to go out for dinner. We were spending as much time as we possibly could together. Any chance we got we were together and sometimes even that didn't feel enough. At least not to me anyway. I knew I was addicted to just being with her. I hoped she felt the same way. I think she did…it wasn't like she was making hints that she wanted to spend less time together.

"So where are we going to eat?" Beth asked as she led me to the girl's locker room. "We still haven't decided that."

"I know," I replied. Surprisingly there was nobody else in the room yet and I glanced towards the door, wondering just how long we would possibly be left alone by ourselves. "We can go anywhere you want, I'm not picky."

"Well that's great except for one thing: I don't know where I feel like going." She shook her head and set her bag down on the nearest bench. "So just leaving it up to me really isn't going to do any good." She unzipped her bag and started going through it so she could get her wrestling gear out. "Maybe-" She let out a startled squeak as I grabbed her by the hips and turned her around so I could kiss her hungrily. I hadn't been able to help myself. Just watching her did things to me and I lacked the self restraint to stop myself from acting on them.

"Mmm…you know anyone can just walk in here," she reminded me.

"Mmhmm." To be honest I barely even let those words sink into my brain. I just pushed her down so she was sitting on the bench and then I straddled her lap so I could have my legs wrapped around her waist as we made out. My arms were resting comfortably up on her shoulders, my hands laced together behind her back. One of her hands was on my lower back and the other was tangled in my hair, making sure my head stayed in place as she deepened the kiss. Our tongues were dueling for dominance and my hips began to rock against her on their own accord, a fire burning through my body as her hand on my lower back pressed me even closer to her. Making out and some over the clothes groping was as far as we had actually gone but it wasn't going to be enough for very much longer.

"No no no! I don't even want to HEAR that out of your mouth again! Justin Bieber sucks and WHOA!"

Beth and I froze and glanced towards the door, where Tiffany and Kelly were staring at us with wide eyes. "Hi…" I said sheepishly. What else could possibly be said? We had been busted big time and there wasn't getting around the fact.

"I knew we should have locked the door," Beth muttered.

"Oh my…" Tiffany put her hand over her mouth and stared at us in shock. "Wow…you two are…I mean that wasn't just a rumor?

"Nope," I confirmed. "It's true."

"What's true?" Kelly asked. She looked back and forth between us and Tiffany, just totally not getting it. "What's going on?"

Tiffany frowned and took her hand off from over her mouth. She almost looked ready to slap Kelly upside the head. "Nattie and Beth being together? Remember? We thought it was just a rumor but considering that we just found them dry humping each other right here in the locker room-"

"We were NOT dry humping!" Beth denied, her face turning slightly red as I just laughed.

"You're adorable when you blush," I informed her.

She raised her eyebrows. "Oh really now? Well-"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Trust Tiffany to interrupt yet again. "Maybe you shouldn't go there right now. You've got a match. Remember that Miss Glamazon?"

Beth sighed loudly. "I remember," she assured her. "How can I forget?" She looked at me and tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. "We'll finish this later?"

I nodded immediately. "Count on it."

…

"Yeah, go Beth!" I cheered as Beth's music hit and she made her way down to the ring. She looked absolutely stunning as usual and she looked so damn proud to be holding that Women's title. "Get that bitch good!"

Tiffany and Kelly exchanged looks before giggling loudly at me. "You want some pom poms to wave around?" Tiffany asked.

"Want my fist in your face?" I shot back, not totally serious with the comment.

"Aw, don't tease her," Kelly scolded Tiffany while hugging me. "She just wants her Bethie to win."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But I don't call her Bethie…if I ever give her a nickname it's going to be something much better than that."

Rosa's music hit next and I hardly paid any attention to her or what she had to say in her little promo. I did however, paid a hell of a lot of attention to the fact that she started pushing Beth and tried to act all tough and stuff. "Who does she think she's fooling?" I asked out loud. It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. "She-yeah, that's right Beth. Shove that bitch on her ass."

Tiffany's eyes widened just a bit. "Uh Nattie-"

"Am I getting too excited?" I asked sheepishly.

"Just a little bit."

Rosa slapped Beth across the face and that was when playtime was officially over. Beth picked her up and put her over her shoulders, carrying and placing her up on the top turnbuckle stomach first and then kicking her. Rosa fell back down to the mat and Beth quickly went on the attack, tossing her by the hair before hitting her with a shoulder block and a couple of clotheslines. Beth then went to Irish whip her into the corner but it was reversed and she had to hop up on the bottom rope and then launch herself over Rosa as she came running in. She landed on her feet and drove Rosa's head into the top turnbuckle, stunning her before raining blows on her face. The referee made Beth back off but she didn't stay that way for long. She hurled herself at Rosa but she moved at the last second, making my girlfriend eat the turnbuckle. As she slumped in the corner, Rosa hit her with a little jumping forearm before backing off. The referee started checking on Beth and I didn't think anything of it at first. But when Rosa went back in for a kick Beth just completely slumped down to the mat and my heart sank down somewhere into my stomach.

"What happened?" Kelly asked in confusion. She was looking to us like we knew what was going on. "Did I miss something?"

I shook my head and watched helplessly as the referee and the ropes helped Beth up to her feet. She was favoring her knee and I just knew something really bad had just happened. Rosa hadn't been focusing on her leg at all so there was absolutely no reason for her to be selling any kind of injury. "Oh fuck," I muttered under my breath. "Not good not good not good…"

Rosa finally charged at Beth again but Beth managed to avoid her and rolled her up for the pin. That immediately confirmed my fears of something bad happening. Any time matches just ended like that meant it wasn't good news. And add in the fact that the referee and then two of the trainers had to help her in the back…yeah, I was rapidly freaking out by the second.

"Maybe she just tweaked something," Tiffany said as I got up and headed for the door. "And it seems worse than it is."

I didn't even acknowledge what she just said. I knew she was just trying to make me feel better but I wasn't going to fool myself. My gut was telling me that it was bad-and my gut very rarely ever lied to me.

…

"Fuck," Beth groaned through gritted teeth. Our head trainer was checking over her leg and I was right by her side, holding her hand and petting her hair gently. She was in a hell of a lot of pain and I knew already we would probably be heading to a hospital before too long. It wasn't even a question at this point. Something was seriously seriously wrong with her knee and we had to find out what it was. "Fuck this sucks."

"I know." I kissed the top of her head and gave her hand a good squeeze. There really wasn't anything more I could do for her at the moment and I absolutely hated it.

"So much for our date tonight," she said, her body deflating and her head resting up against my chest. "Sorry."

"Sorry? Babe you got nothing to be sorry about." I was not about to let her feel guilty about anything. That would just not do at all. "Who says we can't have a fabulous night anyway? We can steal a couple of wheelchairs and race them. It'll be fun."

She laughed a bit at that but then she grunted in pain. I winced and hugged her tight, glaring at the trainer just because I couldn't do much else. He just looked at me passively, telling me with his eyes that I needed to drive her up to the hospital.

Fuck, this was going to be a long night.


	7. Chapter 7

"How bad is it?" Cooper asked me the next time we were on the phone with each other. He sounded like he was eating something and I shook my head at the disgusting chewing noises he was making. If he didn't hurry up and finish whatever it was he was munching on I was going to hang up and then kick his ass the next time I saw him.

"She tore her ACL," I told him. She was sleeping at the moment and I was standing in the hallway outside her room, trying to keep my voice down so I wouldn't wake her up. "She's going to need surgery and she'll be out for like six months at least."

"Oooh," Cooper groaned sympathetically. "Shit."

"That was our reaction." I had actually said it and Beth was obviously thinking it. This was just horrible horrible timing. She had really struck a chord with her baby face turn and JUST got the belt and should have been scheduled for a nice long reign but now that couldn't happen. She was going to have to drop the belt and go out and have surgery. It was just so unfair for her and I knew that even if she was hiding it pretty well she had to be pretty frustrated. I knew I would be if I was in her shoes.

"Well fuck." I heard a wrapper crinkle, signifying that he was crumbling it up and tossing it away. "What are they going to have her do with the belt? Is she just going to give it up-"

"She won't do that," I said automatically. That conversation hadn't been had yet but I knew damn well that she wouldn't just forfeit the title. If she was going to lose it she was going to get beat for it and that was just the end of the story. "She'll want to go out fighting."

"Is that smart?" Cooper asked. "I mean, maybe they could do like an injury angle instead of a match-"

"She won't do it." I was being rude with the whole interrupting bit but I didn't care. It was Cooper, he could get over it. "Or at least she won't want to. If they made her she would obviously do it but she'll try to fight them on it if that's the direction they want to go."

"What do you want her to do?" Cooper asked. I could hear his lighter flicking so now he was smoking, which he knew I disapproved of. There was no point in saying anything to him about it though. That was just not a winning battle.

I shrugged. "It's not really up to me," I reminded him. "It's her decision."

"Well I know that! I never said anything to the contrary. I just wanted to know your feelings on it."

I sighed and leaned back against the wall. I really didn't know how I felt about the situation yet. I mean yeah, from a pride standpoint I understood perfectly well why Beth wanted to go out fighting. And that was also just part of the business. She wouldn't be the first person to go out and wrestle hurt and she wouldn't be the last either. But still, I really cared about her and I was worried about it being made worse if she went out and wrestled. "I just want her to do what's best for her," I finally answered.

"Aww, that's so sweet." Oh fuck, Cooper needed to stop with that fucking tone or I was going to hurt him when I got my hands on him. "You wuv-"

"Wuv? What, you're going to baby talk now?"

"Maybe. You got a problem with it."

"Well what are you going to do about it?"

"This." I hung up without another word. Dramatic yes, but I didn't give a damn. I put my phone on silent so it wouldn't bug me if he decided to call me back and then I went back into Beth's room. I tried to be as quiet as possible as I crept back over to the bed but of course she woke up.

"Hey," she said groggily.

"Hey." I reached out and grabbed her hand, giving it a firm squeeze. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"No you're fine. I was waking up on my own anyway." She scooted over and motioned for me to lay down with her. I did so slowly, making sure I wouldn't jar her bad knee in any way. "Who were you talking to?"

"Cooper." I wrapped my arm around her and snuggled with her carefully. I knew she might not totally appreciate me treating her like a delicate doll but I just wanted to be careful. "He was being an idiot so I hung up on him."

"Think he'll call back?"

"Eh, who cares? I can talk to him later." I began to play with her hair as I changed the subject. "When is Johnny Ace or someone supposed to call you?"

"I think this afternoon sometime," Beth replied. "I know they said they were going to talk to the doctors first or whatever." She rested her head against me and sighed. "I keep going back to the match in my mind and I try to think about if there's anything I could have done that would have made this not happen."

"Babe don't think like that," I said gently but firmly. "These things just happen sometimes. Something obviously just was wearing out and it finally gave. It's the price we pay sometimes."

"I know." Knowing that obviously wasn't doing anything to make her any less frustrated. "It just fucking sucks."

I nodded sympathetically. "I know. But you'll deal with this and come back stronger than ever." I kissed the side of her head before kissing her lips, sliding my tongue inside of her mouth and happily turning this into a make-out session. I knew that the inevitable surgery and long road to recovery was weighing heavily on her mind and I wanted to distract her from it any way that I could.

Her breath hitched a bit as one of my hands began to run over her thighs. We stared at each other for a long moment before she moved her good leg further away and allowed my hand to go even more up and push her panties out of the way and gently rub her already wet heat. She let out a low, quiet moan and arched towards my hand to rub back against it shamelessly. I let her do this for a few seconds before sliding two fingers into her and pumping them slowly. I gradually picked up the pace, alternating between kissing her and just watching the pleasure that was written on her face. I could feel an ache starting between my legs that desperately wanted to be taken care of but I ignored it. This wasn't about me right now. This was about her and making her feel better.

"Fuck…shit, right there…Nattie…" The rest of her words were drowned out by a loud moan as she orgasmed and I grinned and kissed her softly. The words _I love you_ popped into my mind but I stopped myself from saying them. They scared me a bit because I wasn't one who just threw them around like other women seemed to do. If I was going to say them I was going to make damn sure I meant them and not a moment before then.

…

"Nattie…yo Nattie…Nattie bear…"

"Maybe we should smack her."

"Maybe I should shove my foot up your ass. How does that sound?"

I shook my head and glanced over at David and Tyson, who looked like they were about to get in a scuffle at any second. "Don't you guys have a match to get ready for?" I asked. I was already in my gear because I just wanted to go out there and get it over with already.

"We've got a little time," David replied. He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. "Seriously, are you alright? You seem to be distracted."

"That's cuz I am," I replied honestly. I just did not want to be here and it was going to hard as hell to pretend like I wanted to be when it was time to go out to the ring.

David sighed and wrapped his arm around me to give me a little hug. He didn't have to ask why because he was smart enough to figure it out for himself. I wanted to be with Beth. That was all I really wanted. Right now Serena was with her and I was going to fly out and meet up with her where the next Smackdown was taking place. It had been decided that she would drop the belt to Layla in a handicapped match against her and Michelle. The writers wanted to have LayCool do a whole "co-champions" thing which just annoyed me because that meant it was just yet another way a belt would stay on Michelle. I wasn't going to deny that she was one of the better workers that had come out of the whole Diva Search thing but to say that her political advantages given to her via her relationship with Undertaker would be a lie. I tried not to let it bother me because I was better than that but sometimes it just got really annoying.

"Well maybe you should look on the bright side." Oh no. Tyson was deciding to add his two cents. This wasn't going to be good. "While she's home rehabbing she can also dedicate a lot of her time into being your little sex kitten."

"….You want to smack him or do you want me to get him?" David asked as I just rolled my eyes.

"I'll give you the honors this time," I told him.

"Oh come on, I was just-OW!" Tyson yelped like a kicked puppy as David whacked him good. "You know what? I'm sick of this crap! I'm tired of being everyone's punching bag! I want respect and I want-OWWW!" This time he was hit by both David and me. "I'm telling Bret!"

I sighed and shook my head as he stormed off. "Why do we hang out with him?"

David shrugged. "Uh…we like to keep a stupid one around to feel smarter?"

"Hmmm…yeah, that definitely has to be it." It was the only thing that made sense anyway.

…

Serena and Beth were already at the arena by the time I arrived at the Smackdown tapings. Beth was getting her knee heavily wrapped by the trainer and once she had her ring gear on they were going to put a brace on it to help protect it. "How are you feeling?" I asked her as I went straight over to her and gave her a small kiss.

"About as alright as I can be," she replied. "I'm definitely not thrilled about the match itself but I'll get over it…because I have to…"

"Michelle and Layla are just being horrible," Serena informed me.

I snorted loudly at that. "When aren't they that way? They're worse than the mean girls I used to go to high school with. At least those bitches had the excuse of being stupid teenagers. What's their explanation of their behavior?"

Beth smirked and shook her head. "They're not smart enough to come up with one. Maybe they were once somewhat smart on their own but once they got together they just made each other into complete idiots."

I started to laugh at that but then I stopped when I heard a thump and then obnoxious laughing that could only come from the two bitches we were talking about. "Oh for fuck's sake…" I went straight to the door and opened it, catching sight of them running around the corner. "You little bitches…" I almost went to chase after them but something new on the door caught my eye. "What the hell?" I looked at the sign that was not there and shook my head. It said "Dykefest 2010" on it in big black bold letters. "Wow. How remarkably juvenile." I showed the sign off to Serena and Beth, who both just rolled their eyes. "What do you think we should do about this?"

Beth just smirked. "I think I'll let my hand slip during my match and really knock those bitches in the face. Let's see how I like that."

I nodded and ripped up the sign up before throwing it away. "Sounds good to me."

"And if they don't get the message?" Serena asked.

"Oh they better," I told her. "Or I'll teach them the way Stu taught everyone down in the Dungeon. They'll learn real quick then."


	8. Chapter 8

Unfortunately for me, I had a few days of house shows after that Smackdown taping so I didn't get to be with Beth during her surgery like I wanted to. I tried to plead my case but it didn't do me much good. I was told they "sympathized with my situation" but that I was needed to accompany David and Tyson to the ring for their matches. I actually considered just leaving and going to her anyway just because of the principle of the matter but David was quick to point out me getting fired over her was probably not going to make her very happy, so that put an end to that plan. I called her to give her the news and she insisted that she would be fine and that she would see me when there was a chance for it. That was supposed to make me feel better but it didn't really work. I sucked it up though and acted like nothing was bothering me when I was backstage at the shows. As soon as I could though, I went straight to Beth, stopping only to pick up a giant thing of ice cream and a cute little teddy bear. "Because everyone needs something to hug after surgery," was what I said to her after I handed it to her.

She laughed a bit and nodded while looking it over. "That's good thinking." She set it down next to her and then patted a spot on her other side, which I happily took. "The ice cream was also a nice touch. Not the healthiest choice-"

"Screw healthy choices," I said dismissively. "We can worry about those later." I handed her one of the spoons I had so we could start digging right in. The kind I had gotten was double fudge brownie; if we were going to get an ice cream overload we were doing it big time. "Every post surgery meal calls for ice cream. It's a simple fact of life."

"You have impeccable logic." She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek before fully embracing it and digging right in. "Fuck…" She nodded her head at me. "This is fucking amazing."

"You're telling me you've never had it before?" I couldn't hide the disbelief in my voice. This was my favorite ice cream ever and the concept of nobody having it was foreign to me (and the mere idea of somebody not liking it was blasphemy).

She shook her head. "I usually go for regular chocolate or mint chocolate chip."

"Ha. They're nothing compared to this." I took an extra big spoonful and popped it into my mouth. "This is the best kind ever invented."

"I'm sure there are people out there willing to debate you over that?"

"Debate?" I snorted loudly. "Forget that debating crap. I'll just beat them into agreeing with me."

Her entire face twitched in amusement. "Did anyone ever teach you that violence isn't always the answer?"

"I faintly recall that lecture. And they were right; violence isn't always the answer. But if it works, why not go for it?"

"Can't say I disagree with that logic," she admitted. She reached over to her bedside table and grabbed the remote. "What should we watch?"

I looked over at the clock to check the time. "Maury's on right now. We could-" I stopped when I saw the look on her face. "You don't like Maury?"

"Just burned out. Been watching it for the past three days. We could go with Cops."

"Or the soaps." Just seconds after I said that we looked at each other and started to laugh. Hard. Nothing else needed to be said on the subject. The TV was on and the channel was turned to Cops. There was nothing like watching white trash Americans at their finest.

"Now see, us Canadians are better than this," I said about halfway through the program. "You will never see us with that many missing teeth and faces that obviously come from inbreeding."

Beth chuckled at that. "This is coming from someone who's from the country that unleashed Justin Bieber on the world."

"Oh come on!" I shook my head. "That was bad of us I know but look at your country and what you've unleashed on the world. Miley and Billy Ray Cyrus-my mother liked Achey Breaky Heart. Do you know how horrible that was for me?"

"You gave us Alex Trebeck."

"What's so bad about him?"

"Freaking Jeopardy. I hate that show."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It just annoys me."

I shook my head. "You gave us Lindsey Lohan, Courtney Love, Jackass-"

"You gave us Pam Anderson. And thanks to her tits teenaged boys were never the same."

"Now that's not even fair. That show was so obviously made in America and her tits probably were too!"

"So what? Don't you know the South Park theory? We just blame Canada!"

"Oh fuck you all and your South Park theories. You can all just kiss my Canadian ass."

She laughed and kissed me, and while I tried to play it off like I was really mad I couldn't keep it up for long and ended up kissing her back, our ice cream soon completely forgotten.

…

"Have you told anyone else in the family?" David asked me as we arrived to the next Raw. Originally our topic of conversation had been about those creepy little Furbie things so he really threw me off by changing the topic like that.

"Tell them about what?"

"You and Beth."

"…No." That hadn't even really crossed my mind. Between being wrapped up in her, work and knowing how the majority of my family felt about homosexuality in general it just didn't even cross my mind to do it.

"Does she really even have to do it?" Tyson asked. Surprisingly he wasn't saying something completely retarded and actually saying something sensible. "I mean really, what is that going to do but cause problems?"

"And what if they find out another way and get pissed that she didn't tell them?"

"How are they going to find out?"

"You know how fast shit like this spreads-"

"In the locker room! They're not in the locker room! The only one of us besides us three is Uncle Bret and even if he knows he's not the kind to blab it to everyone else."

"Exactly," I said with a nod. "The only people I really have to eventually tell are Mom, Dad and my sisters and since Beth and I are not at the meet the families stage yet, I can just put that off for now."

"That's my girl." Tyson and I shared a high five while David just shook his head. He was the type to worry about shit like that and he would bug me about it again but I was going to keep pushing it off for the time being. I really wasn't expecting a whole bunch of positive feedback when I broke the news, especially when I told my mother, but why worry about it until I had to? That would just cause me way too much unneeded stress.

We dropped our stuff off in the locker room and then went to go get ourselves some bottles of water. We didn't actually have a match tonight; we were just playing a role in Bret's match against Miz for the United States title, which was just fine with us. We were all more than proud to stand by his side and help him. We all knew that he really couldn't wrestle the way he truly would like to; his match with Vince was a glorified squash match really and his match with Miz tonight would involve us, Jericho, Regal and Kozlov, which would add enough bells and whistles to take the focus away from Bret's limitations. It helped that we were in Canada, because not only was Bret a legend here but he was part of wrestling royalty. They would probably cheer him even if he went out there and punted babies out to him.

"Maybe you should start by telling Bret." David was back on this subject. He was worse than a dog with a bone. "I mean-"

"David! Good god you nag worse than a woman!" I reached over and smacked him really hard in the chest. "I will do what I feel is best because it's MY relationship! Okay? Can you try to understand that?"

I didn't get an answer to that. He was too busy looking at something behind me so I turned around and saw Bret standing there. He had his hands shoved in his pockets and he was shaking his head at David.

"Quit pushing her. I already know."

"Who-"

"Nobody needed to tell me. I'm the Hitman. I always know." He gave us a nod and then walked off, leaving the three of us to just stand there and blink.


	9. Chapter 9

The first chance that was given after David and Tyson won the tag titles, David's mother Diana (one of my many aunts that Cooper doesn't understand how I keep track of without a list or anything) insisted on having a little gathering at her place to celebrate. David was of course embarrassed that she was making a big deal out of this and I tormented him for a good three hours straight about it just because it was funny watching his face getting redder and redder. Tyson of course, was more concerned with what kind of food that was going to be served. I didn't know why that mattered because he pretty much ate anything anyway. Any pickiness was just him being annoying.

Within minutes of arriving, before I could even smack Tyson for making an ass out of himself by hopping over several children just to get the snacks, I found my arms being grabbed by my sisters Jennifer and Kristen. "Hey girlie," Jennifer said with a grin.

"Hey Jenny." I gave her a kiss. "Hey Muffy." I turned my head and gave Kristen a kiss on the cheek too. That was her nickname although I forgot who even started calling her that in the first place or why it was done. She was just Muffy.

"Mom wants to see you," Kristen informed me.

"Oh?" I could tell by her tone that that was probably not a great thing. This was going to mean some conversation that I really wasn't going to want to have.

"Yep," Jenny confirmed. "She told us to fetch you as soon as you got here."

"Don't you two feel special?" I loved my mother to death but I couldn't help the feeling of exasperation that was rising up in me. Mom had the tendency to suddenly come up with stuff she didn't like about our lives and not only let us know it but try to get us to change it. It wasn't like she was intentionally controlling or anything; she just was an extremely Type A personality that liked to take charge, even if it wasn't her place to.

Jenny and Kristen led me out to the back porch, where Mom was watching some of the grandchildren run all around the backyard. "Hey sweetheart," she said when she looked up and saw that I was there.

"Hey Mom." I hugged her and then sat down in the chair across from her. "How are you?"

"Oh I'm alright. How about you?"

I shrugged. "I'm peachy." I caught the way she was already signaling for Jenny and Kristen to get lost with her eyes and I sighed and made myself comfortable. This was going to take awhile.

"Are you making sure Tyson is behaving out on the road?"

"What else would David and I be doing?" I asked jokingly.

Her lips twitched slightly into a smile. "I heard you two broke up again."

I only nodded in response.

"You want to talk about it?"

I shook my head. "There's nothing to talk about. We just broke up and I think it's for good this time."

"How did he take it?"

"He wasn't too broken up about it. It was a mutual thing Mom." I tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear. "We're both fine, honest."

Mom nodded. "Are you seeing anybody else then?"

That question made me freeze. I didn't know how to answer that question. I didn't want to lie to her. I hated lying to anybody, least of all to my own mother. But telling the truth wasn't something I could do right now. It wasn't that I was ashamed to tell her or anything. It was just something that needed to be done in private, without the rest of the family around to hear any blowup that could possibly happen. I wouldn't say my mother was homophobic but I had the feeling that me telling her that I had a girlfriend wouldn't go over well at all.

"Natalya?" Shit. Mom was pressing for an answer. What did I tell her? No answer was coming to me. Shit shit shit. What did I say to her?

Lucky for me, I was spared from the awkwardness by Bret, who poked his head out the door. "Hey Ellie? I need to borrow Nattie for awhile if that's okay." Despite the fact that he was seemingly asking permission, he didn't wait for her to give it. Instead he just took my hand and pulled me the hell on out of there. "I don't actually need you," he confessed as we went through the house and out the front door. "I just saw the look on your face through the window and figured you needed saving."

I couldn't help but smile at him. He really was amazing. "Thanks."

"No problem." He smiled as I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tight. The smile faltered just a bit as my grip got a little too tight. "Oxygen is overrated anyway…"

"Ooops! Sorry." I let him go and smiled sheepishly.

"It's okay," Bret assured me. He winced and put a hand to his ribs. "I haven't had a hug like that since the time your father decided it would be funny to wake me up with a bear hug."

"Have you heard from him lately?"

"No. I've tried but no luck. What about you?"

"I got a hold of him about a week and a half ago but we didn't get to talk for long." I couldn't hide the worry in my voice as I said that. Dad's issues had been making news lately and there was help he needed but wouldn't get because he was too stubborn to do so.

Bret sighed and put his arm around me. "He'll be okay."

"You don't know that."

"I know your dad though. Ad he's tough as they come. That should hopefully get him by until we figure out a way to help him and have it stick this time."

The realist in me wasn't buying that really but I nodded, forcing myself to accept the comofrt. "Mom was trying to find out if I was seeing anyone."

"Oh boy…" The sudden change of topics was definitely welcome on both sides. "What did you tell her?"

"Nothing. You saved me from having to." I rested my head against him. "And again, I say thanks for that."

"It was my pleasure." He gave me a kiss on the top of my head. "Of course, now that she hasn't gotten an answer, she'll be looking to interrogate you later."

I winced at the very thought of that. "Yeah I know."

"Are you afraid to tell her?"

"No…"

One of his eyebrows shot up. "Does that "no" spell Y-E-S?"

"…Maybe," I reluctantly admitted. "I just…I know she's going to react badly no matter how I tell her. And then I know she's going to end up saying shit that will make me mad because that's just how she'll be. And then that will lead to a fight and then it'll just be one big mess."

Bret nodded along sympathetically. "But you can't just not tell her-"

"Oh God no," I agreed. "If I don't tell her and she finds out another way? Fucking_ hell_ will be unleashed on my ass. And my ass don't like hell."

"Maybe you should tell your sisters first," Bret suggested. "Get their support first."

"You think?" That actually sounded like a pretty good idea.

"It's worth a shot. You could have them there with you when you tell Ellie then or they could talk to her afterwards if it goes bad."

I liked the sound of that. I definitely would need all the support I could get and having Jenny and Kristen on my side would definitely help with Mom. "What would I do without you Uncle Bret?"

"Still be back there in a total bitch of a situation," he replied. "Unable to think of a somewhat simple solution to all this."

"To _you_ it's simple. To me-the person actually _in_ it-it's not that simple."

"Nattie…I had to tell this family about cheating on my wife with Shawn Michaels of all people. Believe me, compared to _that_, this is simple."


	10. Chapter 10

"Beth please, just stay _still_ for awhile," I pleaded as carried the groceries I had gotten for her into the house. I had done her shopping so she wouldn't have to mess with going out and about but apparently that was what she _wanted_ to do. I had caught her moving around in circles in her living room on her crutches and the look on her face as she was doing it showed just how sick and tired she was of being hurt already.

"I've _been_ sitting still," she argued. "I'm tired of it. I should have gone with you. Why didn't you just take me with you?"

"Because you looked too comfy to move." I went to the kitchen and set her groceries down on the counter before going back out to the living room and giving her a kiss. Before I had left she had been snuggled up on the couch, buried underneath a couple blankets and her bad leg propped up on a couple of pillows. She seemed so comfortable and peaceful when I was going to leave that I just hadn't seen the sense in getting her to move. "And you get to start rehabbing your leg soon, so I was thinking that maybe you should rest before you get going with that."

"And why would you think that?"

"Well I like to think I know you pretty well by now and I know you won't be wanting to rest once the rehab does start…"

Beth managed a small smile at that. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'm just…I'm just feel like I'm trapped here, you know? I'm just tired of it."

I nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Kiss me?"

I grinned. "Like you have to ask." I obliged her more than happily, gliding my tongue into her mouth as her lips parted to allow me entrance. She let go of her crutches and grabbed on to my shoulders to support herself and I quickly wrapped my arms around her and carefully eased us over to the couch so we could sit down. It wasn't exactly easy to get comfortable given the fact we had to watch her knee, but we managed it the best we could. She ended up laying down, the bad leg up on her pillows and the other one locked around my waist as I laid carefully on top of her. My hands slipped up under her shirt, lightly groping her as we continued to kiss. As our kisses started getting deeper, our groins started grinding together, despite the fact that our jeans were still on and in the way.

"Fuck," I moaned under my breath. I slipped her shirt off and then lifted my arms so she could do the same to me. Our bras soon followed and I immediately pressed myself against her, kissing and sucking on her neck.

"Nattie…" Beth tilted her head to the side to expose more of her throat to me. Her hands were running up and down my back, her nails digging into my flesh and making me hiss loudly.

"Fuck," I said under my breath. My hands moved down her body, eventually stopping at the waistband of her jeans so I could undo them and slide my hand down them. I got past her panties and started rubbing her wet heat, kissing and sucking on her breasts while I did it. She arched her chest up towards my mouth while moving against my hand eagerly. Her own hands were working to unbutton my jeans as well and down her hand went, her fingers sliding into me at the same time mine slid into her. My lips went back upwards and met hers once more. We shared a heated and sloppy kiss as we moved against each other's fingers. The only sounds in the room were our moans and heavy breathing. I slid a third finger inside of her as her thumb started rubbing circles around my clit, our respective orgasms coming within seconds of each other. Breathing heavily I rested my head against her chest, smiling when she kissed the top of my head and started petting my hair with her other hand.

…

"Ladies and gentleman, your movie man has arrived," Cooper announced as Tyson let him into the house. After a couple of days to ourselves Tyson and David came over to hang out so we could all just fly to the next set of shows together. As for Cooper, I didn't even know he was in the area until he called me and asked for directions to Beth's house. I had no idea what he was doing around here anyway. I had tried to ask but he had just eluded answering me by hanging up on me. Once again, he was living up to be a real pain in the ass and if it weren't for the fact Beth and I were engaged in a contest of who could catch the most chocolate covered popcorn in our mouth, I would have gotten up and kicked his ass.

"What movies did you bring?" Tyson asked as he came over to investigate. "Did you bring anything good? Is it porn?"

"…Why would he bring porn for all of us to watch?" Beth asked while looking at Tyson like he was insane.

"Daddy Dearest owns a porn enterprise," Tyson replied. "He has like an all access pass to anything he could ever want."

"Yes I do but no I did not bring any," Cooper informed him, shaking his head at Tyson's obvious disappointment. "I only brought the finest selection Blockbuster had to offer."

"Damn it. I hate you."

Beth shook her head and tossed another thing of popcorn at my mouth. She didn't know Cooper that well so she wasn't entirely comfortable around him. Being friends with him as long as I had been, I had assured her over and over again he was a good guy. But still, it was a well known fact that the Lawsons weren't the sanest people around and it was hard to blame her for still being wary around him.

"Damn it," I cursed as I once again failed to catch the popcorn. "I think your aim is off."

"No way. Your catching ability sucks."

"Like hell it does. It's your aim." I tried once again to catch one but it bounced off my lower lip. "Damn it." I grabbed a piece of popcorn and threw it at her. It went too high and hit the bridge of her nose instead of going into her mouth.

"And you complained about my aim?" She laughed a bit before intentionally throwing a piece of popcorn at my head.

"Just because I missed doesn't mean yours don't sucked." I threw a piece back at her.

"Oh yeah?" A piece bounced off my forehead.

"Yeah." A piece got stuck in her hair.

We both stared at each other for a moment before grabbing the popcorn by the handfuls and throwing it at each other. Cooper, Tyson and David (who had just come back from the bathroom) were openly staring at us but we didn't really give a shit. We just kept throwing the popcorn until there was none left in the bowl and then, while I was trying to gather some up on the floor, she grabbed me and put me into a headlock. "Hey! That's cheating!"

"Well what are you going to do about it?" Beth asked. "Huh? What are you going to know? Oh that's right, I'm injured. You can do nothing woman!"

"Yeah, you can do nothing woman," Tyson agreed. "Just surrender your body and-"

David quickly clamped his hand over Tyson's mouth. "I'm going to stop you there before you say something that will get you hurt."

"Good idea," I muttered. I knew what track that whole "surrender your body" thing with Tyson was going to go down and it was going to get him hurt quite frankly. No matter what he thought and how much he begged, Beth and I weren't doing anything in front of him beyond kissing. And even that wasn't for him. That was for us. If he felt like being a perverted idiot about it we would kick his ass into next week.

"Dude, you should totally give her a noogie," Cooper told Beth. He had the little gleam in his eye that spelled absolutely no good. "She hates that shit."

"Does she?" Beth decided to go ahead and test that theory despite my loud protests. The instant she started with the noogie I yelped and pinched her side as hard as I could.

"Ow!" She let me go and looked at me in shock. "What the hell Nat? I give you a noogie so you pinch me?"

"Yes," I replied. I scooted back away from her so she couldn't try it again. "Believe me, you got off light. Last time David tried that shit, he got hit in the balls."

"Don't remind me," David said under his breath. One of his hands moved over his groin as he winced at the memory. "My nuts weren't the same for a week."

Tyson and Cooper both snorted loudly and while Beth and I both attempted to look sympathetic, it didn't take long for us to break out into a fit of giggles. "Thanks guys," David said with a shake of his head. "I really appreciate that."

"Any time man," Cooper said. He patted David on the back a couple of times before holding up a couple of the movies he had brought with him. "Now come on people. Let's start this shit already."

…

The next morning David, Tyson and I all had to leave really early for our flight. I tried not to wake up Beth as I gathered up my stuff but she woke up anyway and of course that made it that much harder to leave. David and Tyson almost had to drag me out because I wanted to stay that much. This complete yearning for someone the moment I walked out the door away from them wasn't a feeling I was used to. I never had this strong of feelings for Tyson when I was with him. Sure I cared about him but with Beth it was like a thousand times more intense. I tried to play it off as much as I could in front of David and Tyson. Tyson wouldn't get it and even if David did there was really not much he could do but be sympathetic, which wasn't really that helpful.

When we arrived at the arena David and Tyson were walking ahead of me. I wasn't paying much attention to where I was going because I was too busy looking at my phone and texting Beth. In the midst of my texting I nearly ran into several people but managed to somehow miss them each time. Eventually though, my luck did run out and I ran into someone. "Oh shit!" I cursed under my breath. "I'm so-" I stopped mid-sentence as I looked at the woman staring holes in me. She was a little taller than me and judging from her hair and skin tone my first guess was that there was some kind of Samoan or island heritage in her somewhere. "Sorry," I finished my apology, trying to shake off the way she was staring at me. "I'm sorry."

She didn't say a word. I tried to just wait and see what she did but eventually I got a little creeped out so I apologized one more time and walked around her. David and Tyson were both looking back at me and Gail was with them now, who was shaking her head.

"I see you met the new girl."

"Who was that?" I asked as I put my phone in my pocket.

"And why was she staring at Nattie with a rape face?" Tyson chimed in.

I gave him an exasperated look. "She was not staring at me with a rape face."

"That's what you think."

Gail shook her head and made sure just to ignore Tyson's comment. "That's Tamina. New diva. She's Jimmy Snuka's daughter. She and The Usos-"

"The who?" Tyson asked.

"The Usos. Jimmy and Jey. They all got called up from FCW-and they're debuting against you guys."

"Uh…and when were we going to get told about this?" David asked.

Gail shrugged. "I don't know. Only reason I know is cuz I overheard Johnny Ace talking about it."

I pursed my lips and looked back in the direction Tamina was in. She was talking to two people I assumed to be Jimmy and Jey but her eyes were still focused on me. _Well this should be interesting…_


	11. Chapter 11

"Fuck," I said with a wince as my hand went over my ribs. David, Tyson and I were backstage and feeling the effects of the attack by the Usos and Tamina. "I think she tried to kill me."

"You you you," Tyson said with a roll of his eyes. "It's always about you Nattie. What about us? We had a match AND got splashed on. You don't get to complain about shit."

I glared at him. "I'm not complaining. Believe me, when I start complaining, you will know."

David rolled his eyes at the both of us. "Can you two please stop? I don't want to hear this the rest of the night."

"She started it," Tyson claimed childishly.

I just smacked him on the back of the head before picking up my bag and putting it over my shoulder. "Let's just go." We had to go to the hotel and get some sleep before waking up early to drive to the next house show.

David and Tyson both grabbed their stuff and followed me out of the room. We passed a few people on our way down the hallway, who all nodded to us as we went by. "Can we stop and get something to eat?" Tyson asked. "I'm starving."

"What about Denny's?" David suggested.

I shook my head. "We've overdone it. I want Taco Bell."

"Ooooh fuck yes," Tyson immediately agreed. "Yes yes yes." He spread his arms wide open. "My body is ready."

David stopped in his tracks and looked at him like he was absolutely insane (which was a pretty common look to give him quite frankly). "Don't you ever say that again."

"My body is ready."

"…." David tried to say something to that but all he could do was open and close his mouth wordlessly before just walking away. Tyson put his arms down and gave me the best little innocent look he could muster.

"Was it something I said?"

…

The Taco Bell we ended up stopping at was a common one for everyone in the company to stop in when we were in the area so when we got there we found Miz, Ted, Melina and JoMo in there as well. "Yoooo, what's up?" John asked as we joined them after getting our food.

"Not much," I replied. I unwrapped my burrito and took a bite out of it. "What about you guys?"

"I tried this Baja Blast Mountain Dew," Ted informed me. "And I hate it."

I frowned. "You do?" I loved it so I held up my regular Mountain Dew, which I had only taken a little sip of while I was waiting for my food. "Wanna trade?"

His expression brightened right up. "Really?"

"Sure." I handed him mine and then took his. "There you go."

"Thanks Nat. You are like all kinds of awesome."

Mike rolled his eyes at him. "Suck up."

"Hey, he's just being smart and recognizing how much I rule," I said in his defense. "Maybe if you grew half a brain you would do the same thing."

His response to that was to shoot me the finger.

"So what do you guys think of the newbies?" John asked.

David shrugged. "They're okay. I mean, we really don't know them yet but they seemed okay when we talked to them."

Ted pointed his thumb towards Melina. "The chick-what's her name?"

"Tamina," I told him.

"Right. Tamina creeps her out."

"She does?" I shook my head at her. "Do I want to know why?"

Melina wrinkled her nose. "She looks like some kind of crazy Amazon chick that's like gonna eat my face if I look at her the wrong way."

"You told me she looked like a tranny," John said helpfully.

I just rolled my eyes. Catty and bitchy comments like that were pretty common from Melina. They were pretty much a big part of the reason that I avoided hanging out with her as much as possible. If she was being nice, the only time it seemed genuine when she was being nice to the guys. She had quite the reputation with all of them and she was notorious for not getting along with the majority of the girls in the locker room. Hell, the only person I saw her really get along with was Jillian and that really said more about Jillian than it did Melina.

"You think these Usos are gonna last?" John asked. It was a pretty legitimate question, given the state of the WWE tag team division. It was no secret that it wasn't exactly something that was too focused on. There were moments when it seemed like things were going to change but those were getting fewer and farther between.

David shrugged. "Too soon to tell. Hopefully. We need some good competition."

"We need competition in general," Tyson chimed in.

"True that," John agreed. "If they don't work out though, I think Tamina might. At least for the short term. We all need a manly looking chick to dominate the other divas for a bit."

"Oh would you stop," I said in exasperation. "She's NOT manly looking." The only reason he was even saying that was because Melina did. He had his head shoved so far up her ass it was hard to even tell where she ended and he began.

I got weird looks from John and Melina for that but I didn't care. They were annoying me and David could sense that and quickly changed the subject.

"So, who's up throwing food on Mike's car again?"

"Hey!"

…

When we got to the hotel and got all our stuff into our room I immediately claimed the bed closest to the bathroom and laid out all across so it would be clear that I was not sharing with anyone tonight. Usually when we all bunked together it was Tyson and I that ended up sharing. When we were dating the reasons were obvious and when we weren't I just put up with him because he and David in a bed together usually led to lots of bickering because David snores and Tyson throws elbows around quite liberally. Tonight though, I wasn't in the mood to be in the same bed with him. Maybe it was just because he was annoying me more than usual lately or maybe it was because now that I had slept in the same bed as Beth, I didn't really want anyone else. Either way, I was sleeping alone tonight.

"Nat move!" Tyson ordered as he got up on his and David's bed and started jumping on it. "Move!"

I gave him an irritated glare. "Don't you even think that you're jumping on to this bed."

"Oh I'm thinking about it," Tyson said happily. "I'm thinking about it a whooooooleeee bunch." He was such a child sometimes that it wasn't even funny. I honestly wondered if sometimes if he just had some kind of emotional issue that kept him from maturing the rest of the way or if he was just really acting that way on purpose all the time. _And it's sad that even after knowing him for so long that I have to wonder that._

"Would you quit it?" David asked as he tried to pull Tyson down. "We gotta get some sleep, not act like little assholes."

"Silence bitch." Tyson smacked David across the face and leapt from his bed over to mine. I tried to roll out of the way but I didn't move fast enough. He landed right on top of me and I ended up getting an elbow right in the chest.

"Ow! Bastard!" I shoved him off the bed and rubbed my chest gingerly before trying to grab him so I could throttle the fuck out of him. He scrambled away though and ran right out the door, forcing me to get off the bed and chase after him.

"Guys don't!" David called after him. "Come on, you're going to get in trouble with the hotel staff again!"

I wasn't listening and I didn't even think that Tyson could hear him. We were both just running, me rapidly gaining on him despite his best efforts to outrun me. "Get back here!" I growled at him "Tyson! You bitch come back here!"

"No!" Tyson refused. "You're going to hurt me!"

"Damn right I'm gonna hurt you! Fucking take your punishment like a man for once!"

He had absolutely no intention of doing that. He started running faster and as a result I picked up my speed as well. I wasn't paying any attention to anything in front of me that wasn't Tyson and as a result I didn't see the person coming out of their room until I ran smack into them. The force of the collision sent us both crashing to the ground and I winced, feeling absolutely horrible now. "Shit…"

"Okay, I was NOT expecting that," Tamina said under her breath as she sat up.

"I'm sorry," I quickly apologized. "I'm so SO sorry." I got up first and then helped her up to her feet. "Are you alright?"

"Momentarily stunned and kind of confused but otherwise I'm peachy." She looked up and down the hallway. "What were you running from?"

"Actually I was chasing Tyson. I was trying to kill him and clearly it didn't really work out that well."

"Ah I see."

"Yeah."

A long silence reigned. I noticed that she was standing just a little bit too close to me and her eyes were going up and down, showing quite an interest in me that didn't exactly make me feel comfortable. "You want to go downstairs and get a drink?" she finally asked.

I shook my head. "Thanks for the offer but I gotta go get some sleep." I would just kill Tyson later when he came back to the room. I started heading back, feeling Tamina's eyes on me until I was finally out of her sight.


	12. Chapter 12

The feeling of Tamina's eyes on me was a feeling that I started to get all too familiar with as the weeks started to go by. Given that we were the managers of the seemingly only two tag teams in WWE, we were working together quite a bit, most of it on house show runs. The structure of our matches were pretty simple: the boys wrestled their asses off, Tamina tried to interfere, I either clotheslined or body slammed her out on to the floor and then my boys picked up the victory. Just because WWE didn't seem to appreciate tag team wrestling anymore didn't mean we didn't bust our asses to try to make them change their minds. In the constant working together though, it gave Tamina a chance to always look at me. I sometimes tried to tell myself that she wasn't but I knew she was. David and Tyson even noticed though at least David had the decency not to say anything. Tyson made a point to announce that she was undressing me with her eyes. I was kind of afraid that he was right.

"Does she know you have a girlfriend?" Gail asked me one day as the two of us and Serena left the gym. The hotel we were staying at had a gym but the one down the street had better equipment so that was where we had went.

"Yeah," I replied. "I've mentioned Beth more than once in front of her and Tyson's only tried to get Jimmy and Jey to ask me to let him watch me and Beth like a thousand times."

Serena rolled her eyes. "I don't know how you put up with him. I would have strangled him long before now."

"I should have done it a long time ago," I admitted. "But I've pretty much grown up with him. As much as he drives me nuts, I think I would actually be sad if I killed him."

"Does he know that?"

"No. And don't you dare tell him I said it either. He can NOT know or I'll never hear the end of it. You two got me?"

They both nodded but I saw the little glint in Serena's eyes. Bitch was definitely storing the information as some kind future blackmail. That was not cool by any means and I was gonna have to come up with some way to get around it. How I would accomplish that though was beyond me. She had me by the balls on this one.

"Is Beth gonna come up to the house show next weekend?"

Gail's question made me frown and look at her in confusion. "Hmmm?"

"The house show next weekend. The one in Buffalo."

Oh yeah. I had almost forgotten about that. "I think so. We've talked about it a little bit. I'm just kind of nervous about giving her more motivation to come back. She's been so fired up and I know she's trying to push herself too hard."

"You think she'll go too hard and re-injure herself?" Serena asked.

"It's what I'm afraid of," I admitted.

Gail shook her head. "Beth's a big girl," she assured me. "She knows her limits."

I nodded, just letting her be comforting. I was sure she was right, but the thing that was getting to me was Beth _sticking_ to her limits. She was getting stir crazy at home. Between wanting to come back out on the road to be with me and get back on the white hot track she had been on career wise, she had more than enough motivation to try to heal faster and push her return up. I admittedly wanted her back something scary but I didn't want her pushing too hard. If she didn't hurt herself in the healing process she would surely do it immediately on return if she came back too early. That wouldn't do us any good whatsoever.

On our way through the lobby we went past Tamina, who was talking to Eve and Phil. Her eyes immediately went to me but I tried to just ignore her and keep my eyes focused on the elevator. None of this was lost on the others. Serena and Gail looked at each other and then at her, trying to give her a glare to back off. Phil looked amused by the situation while Eve tried to pretend she didn't notice but out of the corner of my eye I saw the uncomfortable look on her face. This was just great. I was getting eye raped right there in front of everyone and I was too uncomfortable to really say anything about it.. Well that and Johnny Ace was about ten feet away, glancing right at us. Last thing I needed was to say something that would rub his stupid stooge ass the wrong way and land me in some kind of hot water.

I made myself walk faster and went straight to the elevator without letting my eyes wander anymore. Gail and Serena were whispering to each other but I ignored them. My thoughts were back on what Gail asked me earlier. Now I knew for certain that I was bringing Beth to the house show. Not only did I want her company but I wanted to send a message. I had been trying more subtle ways of doing it but clearly more drastic action had to be taken-and I was more than ready for it.

…

"Tyson does know that if he tries to steal my crutches tonight, he's dead, right?" Beth asked as we entered the arena. It was the night of the house show in Buffalo and after spending last night and this morning lounging around the house, we were finally getting to the show.

I nodded. "I had that talk with him already. Don't worry, you still scare him enough where he should listen without a problem."

"Good."

"Beeeeeeeethhhhhh!"

Beth's eyes widened as Serena came running at us, seemingly doing her best overly happy Kelly impression. "Finally!" Her arms went around Beth and I just laughed at how uncomfortable she looked. I knew Serena had to be doing this on purpose just to get a reaction. "You said you would call! You never called!"

"…I'm sorry?" Beth really had no idea what to say.

"You should be." Serena let her go and then wrapped her arm around me. "So what are you two lovebirds doing after the show?"

"What do you think?" I replied with a smirk. I leaned over and captured Beth's lips in a quick kiss.

"Awwww sooo cuuuuuteeeee…"

"Shut it," Beth ordered before kissing me some more. "So where's that Tamina chick I've been hearing so much about?" I had told her a bit about Tamina's seemingly never ending fascination with me but I didn't tell her about the full extent of the stares I had been getting. I didn't want to inspire a full on "bitch get away from my woman fight". Just a "bitch this is my woman" look.

Serena shrugged. "I have no idea. I've only seen you guys, Phil and Luke."

"Well that's helpful."

I shook my head at Beth's sarcasm. "We'll see her eventually." I adjusted my bag on my shoulder. "We gotta meet up with David and Tyson and look at the sheet for the show. We'll talk later, alright?"

"I'm holding you to that," Serena promised as we headed off.

We walked down the halls leisurely, stopping to make small talk as we went. Most of the attention was going to Beth, since she hadn't been around since her injury. I was fine with it but I noticed her attention wasn't fully on the conversations she was having. She kept looking around, scanning the area for something. And it was by the time we were by catering when we found it. Tamina was there with Jey and Jimmy and I started to lead Beth over there so we could talk to them when she pulled me back. "Wha-"

Her lips on mine cut me off and while my eyes widened in surprise, I did nothing to push her off. I let her deepened the kiss, sliding my tongue back against hers. She let go of one of her crutches and weaved her hand in my hair, not letting me go until our lungs were begging for air. As we caught our breath, I looked over to see Jimmy and Jey staring at us with dropped jaws and Tamina giving Beth the biggest death glare imaginable. "Was that necessary?" I whispered.

Beth only nodded curtly and glared back at Tamina.


	13. Chapter 13

"Was that display you put on back there really necessary?" I asked Beth later that night. We had grabbed something to eat after the show and were now back at her house so I could get some sleep before David and Tyson picked me up in the morning and we drove to our next venue.

"Which display?" Beth asked, trying to play innocent. She wasn't very good at it. She knew damn well which one I was talking about.

"The one where you grabbed me and made out with me in front of Tamina and everyone else," I answered, indulging her little act for the moment. "Was that really necessary?"

"Well…yeah I think so," she admitted. She got into bed and grabbed the magazine she was going to read until she actually felt like going to sleep. "Why? You don't think it was?"

"I thought it was a little much," I admitted. I pulled the covers back on my side of the bed and sat down. "You don't think it was a little much?"

"No. Why would it be too much?"

"I don't know."

"You want Tamina to leave you alone don't you?"

"Well yeah-"

"That was part of the reason you wanted me at the show tonight wasn't it? She won't quit eye raping you and you wanted to reinforce the fact that you're taken, right?"

"Yeah. But don't you think just waltzing in and making out with me right in front of her will come back and cause some kind of problem down the road? Like, what if you made her like crazy jealous and she comes at you with like an ax or something? Or follows you in your car and tries to run you off the road? Or-"

"I think you've been watching too many movies again," Beth said, cutting me off before I could really get going. "Or hanging out with Tyson too much."

My lips twitched a bit at that. "I always hang out with him too much," I reminded her. "Not really my choice. It just keeps happening."

"We really gotta fix that." She flipped through a couple pages of her magazine before changing her mind about it and putting it back on the nightstand. "Look, I didn't really know what else to do, okay? I didn't want to just ignore her and talking to her would have probably led to me punching her in the face. So I settled for sending a strong message."

"And giving all the boys back there a show," I pointed out. I covered myself up with the blankets and scooted over so I could rest my head against her. "You do realize now that every time we're there together they're going to want us to make out, right?"

She made a face at that. "Ugh. Remind me to just kill everyone. Save us a whole lot of trouble on that front."

"Okay," I agreed. "But we gotta make sure to be careful. We don't want to get caught and sent to jail for the rest of our lives. I don't fancy having to cozy up to some big chick named Bertha."

Beth about choked on the breath she took before busting out laughing. "Nooo," she agreed. "Fuck no. You're my bitch, not Bertha's."

My jaw dropped at those words. "I'm your bitch? EXCUSE me? Since when have I been the bitch in this situation."

"Since I said so," she replied with a smug smirk. "You got a problem with that?"

"A little bit yeah."

"Well what are you going to do about it?"

That was a challenge if I had ever heard one. I couldn't just let it go unaccepted. "I'll do…THIS!" I pinched her side and then started to tickle her, making her yelp and try to push me away. I wasn't budging though. I only tickled her more, making her yelp again and squirm again until she was in tears. "Who's the bitch now?"

"Yo-AH!" She about jumped out of the bed as I tickled even harder. "Me alright? Me me me now STOP!"

I smirked and finally stopped. "Good girl." I gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I knew you'd see things my way."

…

"Soooo I heard SOMEONE here put on a little show with their girlfriend the other day!"

I groaned as the obnoxious voice of Michelle McCool reached my ears. She and Layla were both coming my way and I had no real way to escape. Fuck. This wasn't going to be good.

"Isn't that what you heard Lay?" Michelle got up on one side of me while Layla got up on the other. They were leaning in way too close to make me as uncomfortable as possible and it was working more than I wanted to admit. "Did you hear about the dykes putting on a show?"

"Of course I did," Layla replied. "I don't think there's anyone here that DIDN'T hear about it."

"I heard they went at it like wild animals."

"I heard that too! Oh my god I'm so glad I didn't see I would have-"

"Are you two going to be done any time soon?" I asked, keeping my tone as bored and uninterested as I possibly could. If I indulged them by showing how angry they were making me they would never stop. "I don't exactly have all day here."

"You gonna go put on another dyke show?" Michelle asked, flipping my hair and stepping in my way as "Huh? You gonna-"

I finally lost my cool and slapped her hand away. "It's NONE of your business what I'm going to do," I growled. "You understand? Leave me ALONE!"

A mock hurt expression crossed Michelle's face. "Oh what's the matter? Did you and Beth break up?"

"Oh no, that's just horrible," Layla said, putting her hand over her chest. "Oh sweetie you know, there's plenty of other tuna in the sea."

I rolled my eyes as Michelle started to crack up. "Wow. That's just so witty." I pushed past them and started to walk away when Michelle grabbed my wrist and turned me back around.

"Look, I know that this must be so hard for you and all, but maybe you should look at this as a good thing. Now you can go back to what is right-which is by the way is men, not a girl that looks like a man."

Those words pretty much killed whatever cool I was managing to keep. I wrenched my wrist out of her grip and shoved her up against the wall as hard as I could. I put one hand over her throat and used the other to shove Layla back on her ass. "You know what I think? I think the two of you should mind your own business-or at least stay OUT of MINE. Because believe me, if you don't, you will NOT like the consequences." I held her for a moment longer before throwing her down to the ground alongside Layla and storming off.

…

"Wait, she REALLY said that?" Gail said in disbelief. I was in her hotel room with Serena and I was filling them on the incident with Michelle and Layla.

I nodded, thoroughly disgusted that I had to do so. "She did. She really did."

Serena shook her head. "Why are we surprised? Not only is she a bitch, but she's judgmental as well."

"Yeah…I fucking just wish there was a way to get her to keep her mouth," I said with a sigh. "And Layla too. Fucking both of them just need to keep quiet."

"You want to try to tell someone?" Gail asked. "If they're harassing you for your sexuality you can get them in big trouble."

I thought that over for a moment. "If it was just Layla I would say that would work. But this is Michelle we're talking about. And as long as she's fucking Taker, nobody's going to get her in trouble for anything."

"And who says they would do anything even if she wasn't dating Taker?" Serena had to ask. "In case you haven't noticed, despite what used to show differently on TV, Vince and everyone in charge are all pretty conservative. I don't think helping out the resident lesbians are going to be on their to do list."

Gail sighed, nodding to acknowledge her reluctant agreement. "Are you going to tell Beth?"

"Nooo," I immediately said. "No no no. I don't want to get her involved."

"You should tell her," Gail insisted and Serena nodded in agreement.

"Guys…" I let out a frustrated sigh before grabbing the closest pillow and hugging it to my chest. "She already is going nuts from being stuck at home and not being able to do anything about Tamina eye raping the crap out of me. If I tell her about this, can you just imagine what she'll do? I can't do it."

"So what will you do?" Serena asked.

"Well…I'm a big girl. I'll deal like one."


	14. Chapter 14

Handling things on my own were easier said than done though. When I got to the arena for the next show I felt like there were eyes watching me everywhere I went. It was a completely unpleasant and paranoid feeling but I couldn't shake it no matter how hard I tried. What I couldn't figure out though whether it was Tamina being stalkerish again or Michelle and Layla planning something. I wanted to keep stopping to look around but I didn't want to show how bothered I was so I just kept acting like nothing was wrong. I talked to Tyson and David about our six person tag match against Tamina and the Usos and then spent the rest of the time talking to just about anyone I could just so I wouldn't have to be on my own. The prickly feeling in my stomach told me that being alone wasn't the wisest of choices at the moment. But despite my efforts, I eventually had to go to the bathroom, which left me all alone. Everything was fine until I started to wash my hands and then I heard someone come in. I looked up and barely repressed my groan when I saw Michelle and Layla's reflection in the mirror. "What do you two want?"

They both put their hands up, trying their best to play innocent. "We just want to talk," Michelle told me. Her montone voice was supposed to be soothing but to me it just came off as her playing up her Southern accent. "You don't need to get all cranky on us."

"Yeah," Layla chimed in. She was maybe a slightly more convincing actress than Michelle was but I wasn't buying it. "Look, we feel really bad about how things have been going between us lately. And we just want to say we're sorry."

"Yeah, we're really sorry," Michelle said, nodding earnestly. "We don't want there to be any bad blood between us. That's not the way to go about things. That's just going to create all this tension and things will be weird-"

"In case you two haven't noticed, there's tension between you and like EVERYONE else in the locker room," I pointed out. "You treat EVERYONE like shit. You completely feed off being snot nosed bitches-"

"Hey hey hey that's harsh now," Michelle said, trying to interrupt.

"Well you do," I said bluntly. "You two are the rudest, most immature people I have ever come across-and believe me, with the people I've met, that's saying something. Now why on earth would I believe anything you're saying right now? I mean seriously. Could you give me any reason I could possibly have to trust you?"

They exchanged looks. They clearly didn't have one. They were really expecting me to buy their line of bullshit. "Look, I don't want to have to deal with this. You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone. How's that sound?" I gave them a few moments to answer and when they didn't say anything I just rolled my eyes and pushed past them. "Just think about it. It's a remarkably simple concept." I left the room, hoping that they would go with what I said. That would make things so much simpler if they did. But I had this bad feeling that this wasn't over yet and I couldn't shake the feeling, no matter how hard I tried.

…

The tag match went well. It was a house show so we were allowed to have all kinds of fun and the match ended with me, David and Tyson locking Tamina, Jey and Jimmy in sharpshooters and having them tap at the same time. After the match was over we walked all around ringside, interacting with the fans and taking pictures. Generally speaking, we all had the most fun with house shows. It wasn't like any of the pay per views or Raw or Smackdown. We could be completely relaxed and have as much fun as we wanted. The guys all took advantage of it by having some of the most ridiculous dance contests that they possibly could and us girls actually got a chance to put on decent length matches that we normally didn't always get to do on Raw and Smackdown.

Once we were done playing up to the crowd we went back through the curtain, where Kofi and Miz were waiting to go out for their match. "You know, I don't think those boys in the crowd truly appreciated all those kisses you were giving them," Miz declared. "I think you need to give one to someone who really will appreciate it."

I smirked, knowing full well what he was getting at. "You're right. I should." I grabbed Kofi and pulled him down so I could give him a peck on the cheek. "There you go buddy."

Kofi grinned while Miz made a loud objecting noise. "Thanks Nattie."

"No! Not HIM!" Miz shoved Kofi out of the way and glared at me for laughing at him. "I meant ME! You should give ME a kiss!"

"And whyyyy would I want to do that?"

"Because I want one."

"And you're suddenly five years old now?" I couldn't stop laughing at him as he huffed angrily. He had his face scrunched up in a pout and he looked ready to start stomping his foot or throw himself down on the floor in a temper tantrum.

"Would you just PLEASE humor me?" He offered me up his cheek and closed his eyes. "Right here babe, come on. Your lips will never know such awesomeness ever again."

I rolled my eyes and then looked at Tyson. He smirked and grabbed Miz by the shoulders before planting the biggest, wettest, sloppiest kiss that he could on Miz's cheek. Miz's eyes snapped opened and he stared at Tyson in shock before yanking himself away and desperately wiping his cheek off.

"Ew ew ew ew ew! What the FUCK man?"

"Merry Christmas bitch," Tyson replied.

Kofi, David and I all started laughing, nearly ready to pee ourselves when Gail came running up to us. "Nattie!" She grabbed my hand to get my attention since I still hadn't calmed back down. "Nattie come here. You gotta see this."

"What?" I asked as I tried to regain my breath.

"Just come here." She began to drag me along, ignoring my questions as she went. She took me all the way outside and pointed to one of the rain puddles that had formed after this morning's thunderstorm. "Look."

I looked and my jaw dropped. All the stuff that was in my bag was now in that dirty muddy puddle. All my clothes, my spare gear, everything. "Are you kidding me?" I grabbed a hold of some of my hair and pulled on it. "Seriously? Fucking seriously?"

"I saw Michelle and Layla coming in from outside," Gail told me. "They looked really smug about something so I went out here and found this."

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. My hands were starting to shake I was so pissed. I should have prepared better for something like this. I shouldn't have thought for one single second they could leave well enough alone. Now all my stuff was either filthy or completely ruined. "I'm going to KILL them," I growled. I started to go back into the arena when Gail grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"You can't go in there looking for a fight," she told me, trying to play the voice of reason. "That's what they want from you. They want you to get pissed off enough to do something completely stupid."

"Ohhh what I'm planning is not stupid. It's VERY well needed." I tried to pull away from her so I could go inside but she refused to let me go.

"I know it's needed but do you realize what could happen if you do it? Nattie please, you HAVE to calm down. We need to go to someone and report this."

"Oh come on Gail. You know that won't do shit."

"And throttling them won't do anything but get you suspended-or worse."

As much as I didn't want to admit it, I knew she was right. I couldn't do half of what I wanted to do to Michelle or Layla. Vince wasn't one to put up with backstage fights and given Michelle's position as Taker's girlfriend, she had a political advantage that I didn't. However, I wasn't going to go to anyone or let this go unpunished. I was going to get them for this. "What car did they come in?"

Gail frowned in confusion. "What?"

"Michelle and Layla. What car did they come in?"

"Um…" Gail looked around the parking lot with a furrowed brows. "Let's see…that one!"

"Fucking sweet." I took a good look at it before going back inside and hunting down a box cutter. Once I had one, I went back outside and went over to their car, slashing up all four tires. Gail watched me do it, putting her hand over her mouth and laughing into it. "That's great," she told me. "You don't think they'll know it's you that did it?"

I shrugged. "I don't care really. I put the box cutter in my pocket and started gathering up my stuff. "I really really don't care."


	15. Chapter 15

Part of me was expecting an immediate backlash over what I did to LayCool's car but it didn't happen. For a couple weeks nothing came of what I did. I actually started to think that they didn't even know it was me that did it. They certainly were not popular back in the locker room by any means. Any one of us could have easily done it or even a fan could have done it. Shit happened. Sure they still tried to taunt me in completely immature ways but they said nothing about the car. So, with the belief that they weren't any of the wiser, I started to relax. I still missed Beth like crazy but I was dealing with it the best I could. Tamina was somewhat backing off at least and with Michelle and Layla not doing anything too out of the ordinary, things fell into a somewhat normal and easy pattern. I spent almost all my time with Gail and sometimes Serena, though it was harder with her given the fact that she was on Smackdown. One night though, after the Straight Edge Society made an appearance on Raw, she met up with Gail and me and the three of us went out to a club. We invited David and Tyson with us but they declined, Tyson because he was sick of a cold and David because he just didn't want to.

"You are like soooo breaking kayfabe babe," Gail told Serena as we downed another shot. The tequila was flowing and while Serena was gone, Gail and I weren't too far behind her.

"Eh." Serena made a face as the tequila burned her throat but she shook it off like a pro. Out of all the girls they chose to add to the Straight Edge Society, they chose the one that loved to drink. Nobody had really thought THAT one through real well at all. The reason they had went with her was because she was the one that had been willing to shave her head without hesitation. The other model girls they had down at FCW hadn't wanted to part with their hair and Serena, who had been fighting to get into the company for forever, had made the sacrifice without hesitation. Unfortunately, while Punk lived his gimmick for real and Gallows didn't drink in public anymore to keep up appearances, Serena was the complete opposite of what she was supposed to be.

"You're going to get in troubleeeee," Gail taunted, downing a shot of her own and falling into me, which nearly made me spill my drink everywhere.

"Watch it." I pushed her away, nearly making her clonk heads with Serena. We were sitting in a booth in the corner of the club, going pretty much unnoticed by everyone else that was there. "She'll be fine. Who cares? Who even lives the gimmicks anymore? Just Punk cuz he's a party pooper."

"Exactly," Serena agreed, leaning too far forward and knocking the tequila bottle over. She quickly picked it back up and looked around to see that there was nothing to clean up what had gotten on the table. "I dare one of you to lick that up."

"Oh fuck you," I replied. "I'm not putting tongue on that."

"Yeah," Gail agreed. "Her tongue is reserved for Beth!" She laughed at her own comment until I smacked her arm. "OWWW!" She gave me a hurt look. "What was that for? I was just telling the truth!"

"Sorry." No I wasn't. I took one more shot before getting up, my ears perking at the song the club was playing. It was something by Pitbull but I was so drunk that the name of it was escaping me. "Let's dance." I needed to get up and start moving. We were here to party, not just sit all night.

Gail tried to make up some bullshit reason as to why she shouldn't but Serena got up and yanked her out of her seat, marching her out to the dance floor with me. When we got to the center of the floor we sandwiched Gail in between us and moved our bodies, giving her no choice but to do the same thing. The lights shone down almost directly on us, making it even hotter as we moved with the beat. Well, at least _attempted_ to move to the beat. We had drank so much that our movements were rather clumsy and uncoordinated. The guys around us didn't seem to mind too much though. With the way we were grinding against each other, it was practically softcore porn. Several guys finally approached us, wanting to dance. Gail and Serena went for it but I didn't have an interest so I excused myself and headed up to the bar. I practically collapsed on to the first stool I could get to, my body lightly coated with sweat and my head starting to pound. The combination of all the booze and the heat had made my stomach upset.

"You okay?"

I looked over and saw that I had happened to plop down next to Tamina. She was holding a drink in her hand and looking at me with a somewhat amused expression. "I'm fine," I said, trying to play off the fact that I was completely smashed. "I just need a drink." I tried to lean over to get the bartender's attention and ended up almost doing a face plant off the stool and on to the floor. Tamina managed to grab me in time before I actually hit the floor and she got up and left her drink so she could start leading me away from the bar.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I tried to slip out of her grip but she was nowhere near as drunk as I was so she managed to keep me firmly in her grasp. "I can't leave there's people in there. Gail and Serena-"

"They're big girls," she replied. "They can take care of themselves." She tightened her grip on me as I almost tripped over my own two feet. "You can barely stand anyway you won't be any good to them."

I tried to argue but then we stepped outside and the cool air felt so good that I just quieted down. I let her get me into her car and drive me back to the hotel. The ride back there was pretty quiet, mostly because I was too drunk to form coherent sentences. "What room are you in?" she asked me as she pulled up into the parking garage.

"Ummm…" I had to stop and think about that one really hard. "207," I finally managed to slur out.

"Okay." She got out of the driver's seat and walked around the back of the car so she could help me out as well. Keeping one of my arms over her shoulders and her arm locked around my waist, she got me inside the hotel and practically dragged me into the elevator. She let me go to lean against the elevator wall as we went up and just looked at me, a hint of a smile on her lips as my head lolled around. The only reason I was still up on my own two feet was because the wall was supporting me. My eyes were half closed and I was incredibly close to passing out. "You know, this is probably a bad thing to say, but you still look beautiful like this," she observed.

I snorted loudly in disbelief. "Yeah right. I'm soooooooo hot right now." I snorted again and tried to push myself off the wall so I could attempt to walk on my own. "I so believe you."

"You should." She waited until I tried to take a step and caught me before I fell once again. Somewhere in the process of catching me her lips met mine and she kissed me hungrily. In my drunken stupor I not only let her kiss me but sloppily started returning the favor. She started trying to back me up against the wall to take it even further when the elevator doors opened and a camera flash went off. We broke apart immediately and turned to see Michelle standing there with her pink digital camera, a huge smirk on her face.

"Am I interrupting?"

Tamina shot her a dirty look and dragged me out of the elevator, practically shoving her out of the way as we went. I tried to go back to snatch the camera from Michelle but I was so drunk that I just passed out instead and knew no more for the rest of the night.


	16. Chapter 16

I woke up the next morning with a horrible headache. The light coming in through the window hurt my eyes and I turned away from it and put the covers up over my head. I felt so horrible. I wanted to just throw up but I felt too horrible to get up and go to the bathroom. I tried to hold it in so I could keep laying there but eventually I couldn't. I was going to throw up all over myself and the bed if I did. So I rolled off the bed with a groan and rushed to the bathroom, sinking down to my knees and throwing up into the toilet bowl. I hadn't felt this sick in ages. I really really overdid it last night. _Never again,_ I vowed to myself. _Never ever again._

Once I finished throwing up I flushed the toilet and brushed my teeth to get the taste out of my mouth. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, wincing at the way I looked. I looked so horrible that I was ashamed that people most likely saw me this way. My head was killing me and I was having a hard time piecing together what happened last night. I remembered splitting away from Gail and Serena but that was about it for the moment. Groaning under my breath, I just stripped myself of my clothes and got in the shower. I turned the water on nice and hot and started scrubbing so I could stop feeling so gross. I was also trying to piece together all what had happened last night in my head. I remember seeing Tamina at one point but things were really blurry. Too much booze. I thought I remembered seeing Michelle…and then realized I did. It was the thought of her that brought back everything. Tamina taking me back to the hotel, kissing me…oh god, I let myself kiss her back. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. And Michelle had a camera…dear god in heaven…"

I shut off the water and got out of the shower, grabbing a towel and hurriedly dried myself off before just throwing on the clothes I had worn last night back on. I didn't give a shit about how I looked now. There were much bigger things to worry about. I felt insanely guilty about kissing Tamina. Yes I was completely drunk and wasn't in my right state of mind to realize how wrong it was and yes she did start it but that still wasn't an excuse. And fucking Michelle…out of all the people that could have found us, she was the absolute worst. It was pretty much a given that she had already told Layla. They told each other everything. And she had probably told the entire roster to boot. She and Layla had about the biggest mouths ever in the business. Of course, she was also completely evil and I could also see her and Layla using the information to blackmail me. Either way, I was completely fucked.

There was a knock on the door just as I finished getting dressed. I peered out the peephole to see that it was Serena on the other side. At first I was almost relieved to see that it was her but then I saw the look on her face. Something was wrong. _Shit…_I took a deep breath to brace myself before opening the door. "Hey."

"Hey." The tone of her voice didn't do anything to make me feel better.

"What's going on?"

Serena just sighed and closed the door behind her as she stepped into the room. "Ummmm…well…everyone got an email from Michelle with a picture attached to it. Do you um, remember what you did last night?"

I groaned and buried my face into my hands, nodding my head shamefully. "I do NOW."

"Oh god…" Serena pinched the bridge of her nose. "HOW could you do that?"

"She kissed ME first!" I said defensively. "I was drunk…I wasn't thinking…" It was true but it just sounded so shitty that I sighed in defeat and ran a hand through my hair. "How many people have gotten the photo?"

"Pretty much everyone in the company," Serena said, which made my heart skip a beat inside my chest.

"Do you think they sent one to Beth?"

She froze at that question and we both just stood there, contemplating that thought. She started to open her mouth to say something but my phone (which was sitting on the nightstand by the bed) going off interrupted her. I went over to it and flipped it open to see that I had gotten a text from Beth. "Oh god…"

"What?" Serena came over and looked over my shoulder. "Shit."

"I don't think I want to open it," I said nervously.

"You have to," she insisted.

"But-"

"You CAN'T avoid this now sweetie. You HAVE to deal with this head on. Hiding is only going to make it worse."

I sighed, knowing she was right even if I didn't want her to be. I opened the text, bracing myself for the worst. The message was short and to the point: 'We need to talk.' "Fuck." Michelle had sent her the picture. I knew it already. I was due to come home today and I was walking straight into a shit storm. And really, despite what fault Tamina and Michelle were at, I was even more angry at myself. I was the one dumb enough to put myself in that position. I was just as much to blame. I was the idiot that got so drunk that things spiraled into what they did. Now I was the one that had to deal with the consequences.

…

I avoided everyone as much as I could as I went to the airport. I also kept my head down the entire plane ride, trying not to think about how my talk with Beth was going to go. I had texted her back to say I wanted to talk face to face. Maybe not the best plan but it didn't feel right to call her and talk about this over the phone. This was something that I had to do face to face, no matter how hard it was. And it did get harder. Driving to the house was insanely hard but walking through that front door and being immediately confronted with the look on Beth's face was the hardest part of all. Her expression was a mix of anger, hurt and betrayal and I swallowed nervously and dropped my bags to the floor. "I'm so-"

She slapped me hard across the face before I could finish. I took the hit, knowing I deserved it. "I'm sorry," I said, getting the apology out the second try.

"Why?" she asked. She was trying to contain herself but it wasn't doing much good. Her whole body was literally shaking as we looked at each other. "Why would you do it? I thought you didn't even LIKE her why would you-"

"I don't like her," I said, rushing now to explain myself. "I don't alright? It was…it was a stupid drunk mistake. I got fucking shit faced with Gail and Serena and we got separated and Tamina dragged me back to the hotel because I was like too drunk to function on my own and then she kissed me…that's not an excuse I know but I'm sorry okay? I'm sorry I did NOT mean for shit to get out of hand." I swallowed nervously and tried to keep my hands from wringing together. "I didn't fuck her. It was just the kiss."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better?" Beth shook her head. "Nattie…" she paused and took a deep breath. "What am I supposed to do right now? Huh? What the fuck am I supposed to do?"

I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. I wanted to beg for her forgiveness and to keep saying I was sorry and that I would never do it again. I would say those things anyway but I couldn't just convince her to forgive me right away. No I didn't fuck Tamina which was in my favor but I still kissed her. That was bad enough. "I think that um….you should do what you think is best." I looked her in the eyes, trying to plead with her with mine. "I'm sorry. I am. And I hope you can forgive me."

She sighed. "I want to…I'm not gonna lie I want to…but I can't right now." She shook her head as my face fell. "I need time." She went around me and went out the door, leaving me to wince as the door shut behind her. I just stood there for a moment, taking deep breaths before leaning back against the wall and sinking to the floor, burying my head in my hands and trying to keep the tears from flowing.


	17. Chapter 17

Giving Beth time to think was one of the hardest things ever to do. Every day I beat myself up over the stupid mistake that I had made. Drunk or not, aware of what I was doing or not…it wasn't worth what it cost me. All I wanted to do was call Beth and beg her to forgive me but I didn't. I was too afraid to push her further away. I used Gail to find out how she was and she was apparently pretty withdrawn and not really talking about what was on her mind. That didn't really make me feel any better. It just made it that much harder to not call her and start apologizing once again.

Weeks went by and I just went through the motions, not really caring all that much about what I was doing at work. Not like I was really doing much anyway. Tyson, David and I were all just kind of there, them in the tag division that was always floundering and me not in the title hunt. Melina was back and now diva's title and set to feud with LayCool to unify the titles. Serena got released for partying too much, leaving me and Gail on our own. Gail I knew wasn't happy with her position in the company…I didn't know too many people that were these days. And us girls knew damn well that it wouldn't get much better for us if the office did what we knew they would do and make Michelle and Layla the unified champions. It was all LayCool all the time, all other girls be damned. Well…it was all MICHELLE all the time. Layla was just lucky enough to be along for the ride.

I got to TV one week and was walking in alone when Tamina came up to me. I groaned under my breath, cursing Tyson and David for leaving without me. I had been avoiding her at all costs, which wasn't easy when we had to wrestle them on house shows and stuff. Still, I had been making sure I wasn't alone with her and I barely spoke to her more than what was needed. I didn't want to deal with her or make anyone think that there was something going on between us. Most people accepted my explanation of things though there were still some that talked about me behind my back. I didn't want to add fuel to that fire.

"Hey." Apparently she wasn't getting the hint to just leave me alone.

"Hey…" I glanced around, seeing that the crew members near by weren't giving us much of a second glance.

"How are you?"

"Eh…" I shrugged. That about summed up my mood in a nutshell.

"How's Beth?" The entire locker room knew we were separated...she was just fishing. "I heard you guys broke up."

"She needs time to think," I replied. "We're going to work things out." We haven't even talked about that yet but that was what I was hoping would happen. I mean, after all, it was only a kiss...it wasn't like I had slept with anyone else. A kiss had to be more forgiveable than that.

"That's not what I-"

"Look, Tamina..." shaking my head, I gave her a deadly serious look. "I know you like me. But you HAVE to understand that I DON'T want you. At all. I never did. I love BETH. Okay? Please get that." Adjusting my bag on my shoulder, I went around her, not looking back to see what kind of look she was giving me for that comment. I couldn't care really. I just headed for the dressing room, groaning under my breath as two unwanted figures crossed my path. "Oh what do you want now?" I asked in exasperation.

"Us?" Layla asked innocently. She and Michelle were already in their ring gear, their halves of their women's title resting on their shoulders. I hated the entire split title gimmick. It felt entirely disrespectful to the belt. "We're not doing anything are we Michelle?"

"Of course not," Michelle said in a pseudo innocent voice. "We wouldn't do anything. We're just concerned about you. You look like you just had another lover's tiff."

"Yeah you look really upset," Layla chimed in. "Maybe you need to reassess your type."

"Yeah, like try not dating such manly looking women..." Scowling, I grabbed them both by the throat and slammed them up against the wall as hard as I could. I didn't give a damn who saw or what the consequences of this would be. I was just so sick of putting up with their shit. We were all sick of it really but they've seemed to just love targeting me in particular for the past few months. Something was going to give and it would give in the form of my fist in their face. "You know what guys?" I said, tightening my grip on them so that they were choking. "I'm really REALLY tired of these games that you're playing.

All your little comments, all those rumors you help spread, all your stunts…they're not cute. They're pathetic. You BOTH are pathetic."

"While I agree with you, I think you need to let them go before Daddy sees you."

My eyes widened as I looked over to see Stephanie McMahon standing there, watching me choke Michelle and Layla like it was no big deal at all. They didn't exactly look relieved to see she was the one that was coming to the rescue. Clearly she wasn't as won over by them as the other writers were (though they were all pretty much male and afraid of the Undertaker, so that was nothing shocking). "Fine." I let them go and gave them both a dirty look. They massaged their necks and looked like they wanted to say or do something really nasty but then second guessed themselves when they saw the look Stephanie was giving them. "Come on Lay," Michelle muttered, leading Layla off back the direction they came.

"You know, I don't understand what Mark sees in her," Stephanie remarked. She shook her head before looking at me. "I'll keep an eye on them. You just worry about you and Beth, alright?"

I blinked in surprise. I didn't know my situation had gotten to that high up in the food chain.

"I think she does want to forgive you." Stephanie was surprising me even more. "I think she just needs an extra incentive."

"How do you know?" I asked. I stumbled over the question a bit given my shock on the matter.

"I talked to her when I was checking up on how her knee's doing," she replied. "I brought it up since I was concerned." She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it gently. "Talk to her. I don't think she'll reject you." She smiled sweetly and patted the shoulder she just squeezed before taking her left. I stood there stunned for a moment before picking up my bag and getting to the dressing room. David and Tyson weren't in there for some reason so after setting my stuff down I took my phone out of my purse and dialed Beth's number. "Come on answer it," I said under my breath. "Answer it babe come on answer it-"

"Hey this is Beth. I couldn't get to the phone right now but leave me a message and I'll call you back-well, unless you're Santino."

I shook my head at her answering machine and waited for the beep. "Beth it's me…look I know you've needed time to think but I need to talk to you again…I can't keep doing this. I need to see you. Talk to you...anything. I...I love you." I tried to say more but that felt like enough...so I just hung up and hoped that she would call me back.


	18. Chapter 18

"You said it over an answering machine?" Gail said in disbelief. I had told her about the message I had left Beth and I had my phone sitting out nearby, waiting anxiously for a call that felt like it was never going to come. I was trying my best to keep calm and be patient. I couldn't just expect her to call me at a drop of a hat. I wanted her to but she probably had her own shit to sort through. Still, it was hard to keep being patient. The waiting for an answer was killer. I just wanted to know whether she would ever forgive me or not. If she did then I wanted us to be able to move on. If she didn't...well then she didn't. I didn't know what I would do then really. I would deal with that if it was the case.

"Yeah..." I shrugged my shoulders. "I had to say it. It couldn't wait."

"Think it'll make a difference," Gail asked gently.

I just shrugged my shoulders. "I can dream..." I grabbed my phone and started to put it out of my sight when it vibrated in my hand. I about dropped it down to the floor I was so surprised. "Shit!" I flipped it open and answered it without even looking to see what number was on the screen. "Hello?"

"Hey Natalya it's Stephanie."

My eyes widened. Now this was surprising. Not who I wanted it to be but it wasn't like I was going to complain. Mostly because i couldn't. "Hey Steph what's going on?"

"I need to talk to you about something."

I faltered at that statement. She had a rather serious tone to her voice that immediately set me on edge. That never tended to bode well. Gail saw the look on my face and tried to mouth a question as to what was happening to me but I held up my hand to hold her off. I couldn't exactly tell her what was going on yet. "What's up?" I asked, keeping my voice as casual as possible.

"How have things been between you and Michelle and Layla?"

Not a question that I was expecting. "Eh...I've been trying to avoid them." That definitely was the truth there. I knew that they weren't going to change any time soon and with Michelle's ties to Taker, I couldn't exactly get away with making her knock it off. Avoiding the two of them was much easier than fighting with them constantly. "Why? Did they say something?" If they made something up I was going to kill them. No joke. I wasn't going to take that lying down.

"No though I'm sure they'll complain once we tell them the news."

"What news?"

"We're going to have you feud with them for the title. And if I have my way you'll win it."

My eyes widened in shock. that was the last news I was expecting to hear. "Really? Why me? I thought you guys were happy with the LayCool show."

"Most are so it'll take some convincing on my part," Stephanie admitted. "It might take a couple shots for the trigger to be pulled. But they've had the ball and it's been run with and I feel it's time to give someone else the shot. Plus it'll kind of really stick it to them if it's you."

I couldn't help but let out a small laugh at that. I would really enjoy that quite honestly. Petty? Maybe, but they were that way themselves, so it was fitting. "Well I hope this works out too. When will I know for sure?"

"Well as of now you're scheduled to win a battle royal tomorrow on Raw. What happens after will be decided as we go."

"Okay. Well thanks." I was doing my best not to get my hopes up too high. I knew all too well that plans could change at a drop of the hat and I didn't want to be diappointed if that did happen. But still, I couldn't help but be a little excited. Beyond from the match against Michelle two years ago to crown the first Diva's champion, I hadn't gotten much of the way of actual title matches. This was the opportunity I had been dying for.

"Well?" Gail said expectingly as I hung up the phone. "What did she want?"

I took a breath and opened my mouth to answer the question when my phone rang yet again. "Now what?" I wondered out loud. I flipped my phone back open and actually checked the number this time. My breath caught in my throat as I did so. It was Beth. "Oh god..."

"What?" Gail was getting impatient now. She got up to stand behind me, looking at my phone from over my shoulder. Her eyes widned when she saw who it was. "Answer it!" she encouraged. "Answer it answer it!"

"I-" I didn't get long to hesitate. Gail grabbed the phone from me and pressed the button to answer it and put it up to my ear. I shot her a glare for rushing me but surprsedd the urge to say anything to her. I didn't want Beth to take it the wrong way and hang up before I could explain. "Hello?"

"...Hey." There was a brief hesitation in her voice, telling me she was just as nervous as I was about this. "It's me."

"Hey Beth." I pushed Gail away because she was trying to lean in and listen in on both sides of the conversation. "What's going on?"

"Nothing much...you?"

"Same." I wasn't about to bring up the phone call I had just receieved previously. The was the furthest thing from my mind at the moment.

"Are you alone right now?"

"Yeah." Total lie right there. I motioned for Gail to leave the room but she refused, forcing me to step out into the hallway instead. "What's up?"

"I um...I got your message. I was going to call back sooner but I um...I didn't know what to say."

That didn't exactly seem like a great start to this conversation. "Look, I know what I said probably won't change anything," I admitted. "I just had to say it and I meant it. I did."

"I know. Look...I miss you. I do. It hurt what you did but I just...it's been so hard to be apart from you. I can't stop thinking about you."

"Really?" My heart was starting to skip some beats inside my chest. I was trying to scale my hopes back down just in case but I couldn't really manage it. I had a feeling this was going exactly where I thought and wanted this to go."

"Yeah." Beth chuckled nervously on the other end of the line. "Look I'm not saying that what happened with Tamina doesn't matter. It does. But I want to let it go. I want it to stop mattering completely."

"Me too," I agreed. "I know I hurt you and I'm so SO sorry. I'll do anything to make it up to you. I hope you know that."

"Maybe we should grab coffee?" she suggested. "Next time you can we could meet up and have coffee or lunch or something and see where we'll go from there?"

"I'd like that," I said. I was smiling from ear to ear now. "I have Thursday free how about I come up then?"

"Okay. I'll see you then."

"Okay." We said our goodbyes and hung up. I stood there for a moment, frozen to the spot and unsure of what to do. "Yes!" I finally said, barely keeping myself from bouncing up and down excitedly. I was back in the game.


	19. Chapter 19

The first day I had off I flew out to Buffalo so Beth and I could meet up. We had agreed to lunch at one of her favorite diners. We had gone there before on several dates though I was a tad hesitant to actually call this meeting an actual date. I was afraid of jinxing it. I wouldn't even let Gail call it a date I was so paranoid. Everything had to go as smoothly as possible. Of course, that meant my flight nearly got delayed and I about had a mental breakdown at the hotel because I couldn't decide what to wear. Everything felt too dressy or too casual. I finally had to mix and match, going with a baby pink camisole with a little black jacket over it. Dark blue jeans and a pair of pink heels completed the outfit and I hoped it sent the right message. I wanted to play it cool but admittedly, I wanted to look hot…maybe it would help things? That sounded shallow but I was going with it.

By the time I got ready and took a taxi to the diner, Beth was already standing in front of it, waiting for me to get there. I paused in the midst of stepping out of the cab, a smile spreading across my face before I could even think to stop it. It had been the first time I had seen her since we split up. To my amusement, we had thought alike in the wardrobe department, except her camisole was black and she wasn't wearing heels. She seemed to notice it too and she shook her head as she smiled back at me. I stepped toward her slowly. As good as it felt to see her, my fear of jinxing everything made me more than a little hesitant. I wanted to just hug her; have her in my arms and apologize a million times once more. I made a move to do just that but stopped myself, paranoid that that was too forward. Much to my surprise though, Beth just shook her head before closing the distance between us, wrapping her arms tightly around me and kissing my cheek. I was so shocked that I just stood there for a moment before hugging her back. "I'm-"

"I know." She pulled away from the hug first and just nodded. "I know."

"Really I'm-"

"You don't have to say it."

"I do though," I insisted. "I'm sorry."

She nodded, accepting it. "Let's go inside." She linked her arm with mine and led me in throuhg the glass door. Several people turned to look at us as we came in but since most were regulars that had been used to seeing us before, they just gave us a little wave and went back to how they were before. We went back to the corner booth and sat down, not really talking until the waitress came and took our orders. Once she was out of earshot, I decided to go ahead and start off the conversation.

"How's your knee doing?"

"It's getting better," she replied. "Hopefully I'll be back within the next month or so."

"Good. That's good." It was better than good. It was great. Especially if we could fix things now. I had really missed having her on the road with me. "Have you uh been watching?"

"Yeah. I see that uh, our dear friends Michelle and Layla have enjoyed screwing you out of the belt."

I cringed. That wasn't something I really wanted to think about. "I'll get them," I vowed. "They can't stop me forever."

Beth grinned. "If anyone can take them it's you. And me."

"Of course," I agreed. I glanced at the waitress as she handed us our drinks, giving her a nod of thanks.

"How are David and Tyson?"

"Oh about the same. David's been a tad more stoic lately and I'm threatening to kill Tyson about forty times a day instead of the usual thirty."

She laughed lightly. "I don't think he actually takes you seriously anymore."

"I think he only ever took you seriously," I admitted.

"Maybe because I was."

I chuckled a bit even though I wasn't sure if she was actually joking or not. We made some more small talk, taking up time until the waitress came back with our food. We started to eat in mostly silence though I had to practically force myself to choke anything down. We couldn't keep up the small talk forever. We were going to have to cover more serious ground. It was something that I was truly torn about. On the one hand, I did want to get it over with. For better or worse, it would be best to have it done. It was just the possibility of the worst happening that was making me dread it. The dread made me put it off until the meal was about half over and then I just couldn't bear to wait any longer. I had to start getting answers. "why did you call me?" I finally asked. "I mean I know you said you missed me but is that the only reason you called?"

"Mostly," she admitted. She put her fork down and took a quick drink of her Diet Coke. "You know I mean I was really REALLY angry with you. Don't get me wrong. And if anything like that happened again-"

"It won't," I said immediately. "It won't." I really meant it too. Drunk or not, it didn't excuse my kiss with Tamina. It was a mistake that cost me the person I cared about the most. I couldn't even fathom being dumb enough to do that again. Not when I knew how bad the aftermath felt.

Beth nodded, accepting that. "Gail was in my ear too," she confessed. "Pleading your case every day."

My eyes widened in surprise. "She did?"

She nodded again. "She told me about how you were holding up and how sorry you were. Even when I told her to leave me alone and that you knew I needed my space she didn't shut up." She took another drink of her Coke. "I can't even keep track of how many hours she kept me on the phone. As time went on though, she got me to realize I missed you a lot more than I was still angry with you."

I made a mental note to forever thank Gail for doing that. I had had absolutely no idea that she had done that. Sure I knew she had been very supportive in letting me talk to her and dealing with how depressed I had been over the whole thing. But to actually go out of her way and talk to Beth for me? And to have it actually work? I owed her so much. I really did. "So um…what do you want? I mean, with us?" I was gonna let her make the ultimate decision. It had to be up to her.

She didn't answer me for a moment. She just thought it over before reaching across the table and grabbing both of my hands. "I think we should give it another shot."

I could literally feel my entire face light up. "Really?"

She nodded.

The smile was going to have to be surgically removed from my face. Literally. If I let them do it anyway. Unable to contain myself, I practically leapt across the table and kissed her hard on the mouth. She kissed me back, nearly actually pulling me across the table and then finally (and rather reluctantly) pushing me back down on my seat so we wouldn't make more of a scene than we already have. It didn't really bother me though. I'd make a scene everywhere we went I had no shame. "I love you," I said. I didn't even know I was going to say it. It just came out.

She smiled and this time it was her that leaned over the table to kiss me. "I love you too."


	20. Chapter 20

"Nervous?"

I could only give a short nod. Survivor Series had arrived and I was holed up in my dressing room. Beth had smuggled herself into the building, not only medically cleared to come back now but there to surprise Michelle and Layla in case they tried anything too funny. Tonight I was wrestling the both of them in a handicap match for the diva's title. For two months I had been chasing after it and tonight was going to be the night. It had to be. I wouldn't accept another failure. Not that my previous two had been my fault really. When I had faced Michelle and Layla before they had cheated to escape with their title. Now I had them both in the match and I would get them right where I wanted them.

"You're going to do fine." Beth's strong arms wrapped around me tightly. "You've got this. You're more talented than either one of them."

"My talent hasn't exactly equaled success," I pointed out.

"Shush now." She tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear before kissing my cheek. "You've got this. Don't ever let them make you feel different." She turned my head and gave me another kiss, this one on the lips. "No go. Get it done. I have a surprise for you when you come back."

I smiled thinly though my confidence was more of a facade than anything else. I didn't have time to argue with her. I had to get going. I left her behind in the dressing room and started walking towards the gorilla position. Several people wished me good luck as I passed but I could barely manage to nod at them as I went. From a distance I could already see Michelle and Layla ready to go. They were to make their entrance before me. A break from tradition to have the champions enter first but it gave me some extra time to put myself together. I did a quick set of last minute stretches that ended once Laycool's music hit. I stood back up and stood from foot to foot, muttering a little prayer under my breath as I stepped up to the curtain. Once my music hit I felt my entire body go into auto pilot. I couldn't soak in anything. Not the crowd's cheers, not the faces Michelle and Layla were making at me-I couldn't even process my own thoughts. All I could really do was picture Beth's face. More than I wanted to win the title, I wanted to make her proud. I wanted to make her happy. Shutting Laycool up and bringing home that title would do both of those things. It was in that moment I truly felt the fire being lit under my ass.

The match itself, much like my entrance, was a blur to me. It felt like the bell rang and the next thing I knew, I was putting Michelle into the sharpshooter. I leaned back into the move, putting on all the pressure I possibly could. I was ready to leave it locked in forever, to valiantly struggle to keep her from the ropes. Yet quicker than I ever anticipated she tapped. She tapped out to the Sharpshooter. The bell rang and that was it. I was finally the Divas champion. After months of being screwed over I had finally made it happen. I let go of Michelle's legs and took the title, falling to my knees. Tears of joy were already streaming down my face. I couldn't help myself. Years of hard work had finally paid off. I went from not being able to even get a job with the company to being the champion. Never before had a moment in my life had ever felt so surreal.

I didn't see the attack coming but I should have. Michelle and Layla attacked me from behind, spoiling my victory by being a sore loser. I fell to the mat and fell victim to the double team, the blow Michelle gave me leaving me too stunned to fight back. Layla grabbed by arms and held me back as Michelle grabbed my title and started talking trash. The fans voiced their displeasure, reminding Michelle that she tapped out. She didn't look too pleased and even in my haze I knew full well I was about to be in serious trouble. Beth's music suddenly hit and my heart suddenly lifted. My beautiful knight in shining armor came charging down to the ring at full force, blonde hair flowing behind her as she ran. Michelle and Layla forgot all about me as they fell victim to her beating. I contributed with some shots of my own before ultimately just watching as Beth took Layla and cemented her return with a Glam Slam. "Thanks," I said. "I-" She cut me off with a hug. The fans roared their approval and without saying anything she put me up on her shoulders in celebration. Laycool's titles were given to me and I put them up triumphantly. The grin was going to have to be cut off my face. It was a perfect moment. If I did nothing else in my career I could still retire happy knowing I had this moment.

...

The moment Beth and I got backstage I was bombarded by people coming to congratulate me. My family got to me first, my dad pulling me into a big hug while my sisters and mom gushed on. Beth got out of the way and after Dad let me go Uncle Bret, David and TJ were all on me straight away. I could hear Gail and the other divas chattering happily to Beth because they couldn't get to me yet. "Guys I kind of need to breathe," I finally choked out. I was appreciating all the attention but they were all squeezing me much too tight.

"No you don't," Tyson replied. He gave me his usual shit eating grin before planting a big kiss on my cheek. "Oxygen is overrated."

"So says you." I pushed him away and gave David and Bret a look. They got the point and backed off. Everyone was still talking at me all at once but I wasn't really listening to any of them. I was looking over at Beth instead. She was smiling from ear to ear but her eyes held a strange look. I frowned. It seemed like she was thinking about something but I had not a clue what it could be. I wanted to ask her but held back, figuring it was something that I needed to ask in private. Beth wasn't one who liked talking about a lot of stuff in front of a lot of people. So I tried to go back to talking to everyone like I hadn't noticed anything. I still tried to watch Beth out of the corner of my eye and noticed Gail whispering something into her ear. The look in Beth's eyes changed. They were up to something. And I didn't have long to wait to find out what it was.

"Excuse me!" Busting out her best Vickie impression, Gail silenced the area with an almost primal screech. Tyson and I both cringed and Dad looked ready to say something of the not nice variety but Mom elbowed him into silence. One look at her told me she was in on whatever was going on. "As much as we could go on and on congratulating Nattie-and believe me girl, I could do it more than anyone else-" she flashed me a big grin "Beth here has something she needs to do."

All eyes turned to Beth. She looked ready to murder Gail but moved past it. She stepped up to me, shooing David and Tyson out of the way she could stand directly in front of me. "Nattie..." she took a deep breath, her lips twitching nervously. "I uh...well I was gonna do this in private but I guess now is as good as time as ever." She grabbed both of my hands and squeezed so tightly I thought my fingers were going to be crushed. "I love you." She saw that I was gonna say it back and rushed to cut me off. "I really really love you. And I know we've been through some stuff but being back here with you tonight made me realize that there's no way I could even try to live without you again."

"Beth-" I wasn't even sure what to say. Something inside me knew where this was going but I could hardly believe it. There was no way I was right in thinking THAt was coming. It couldn't be.

But it was. Right there in front of my family and all our friends she dropped down to one knee. She reached down into her bra and pulled out a small black box. My breath caught in my throat and my heart skipped a beat inside my chest. "Natalie Katherine Neidhart, will you marry me?"

A collective gasp left the mouths of everyone in the room, including me. Tyson nearly yelled something but David slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him. Beth looked up at me, her face beet red. She looked just so flustered and terrified that I would say no. "Yes." Of course that was what I said. I wouldn't have ever said anything else. "Yes."

Beth's entire face lit up. Wordlessly she put the ring on my finger and sprang up to her feet. I was pulled up off mine as she pulled me up into her arms, planting a hard kiss to my lips. I wrapped my arms around her neck while my legs went around her waist. The others were clapping and hollering and I barely noticed as Bret grabbed my belt from me before it fell to the floor. The world was just melting away. In that moment it was just me and Beth...and that was all I was ever going to need.


End file.
